Natural Marine Product Currently Being Tested to Treat Cancer

A research team led by Bradley Moore at the marine biomedical laboratories at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego discovered an enzyme inside a bacterium identified in 1991 called Salinispora tropica. The enzyme, called SalL, is currently being tested to treat cancer in humans. The Salinispora derivative “Salinosporamide A” is currently in phase I of human clinical trials for the treatment of multiple myeloma and other cancers. Moore believes the discoveries provide a new “road map” for furthering S. tropica’s potential for drug development. Knowing the “pathway” of how the natural product is made biologically may give biotechnology and pharmaceutical scientists the ability to manipulate key molecules to engineer new versions of Salinispora-derived drugs. Genetic engineering may allow the development of second-generation compounds that can’t be found in nature. The chlorine atom in salinosporamide A is key to the drug’s irreversible binding to its biological target and one of the reasons the drug is so effective against cancer,” said Moore.

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