I have participated in a drug discovery program designed to screen marine algae for
inhibitors of cancer-related enzymes, antitumor compounds, antiinflammatory substances,
and other agents of potential pharmaceutical utility. Over 1,500 lipid and aqueous extracts
of marine plants and animals were surveyed for biomedical potential. Assays designed to
screen extracts...
Marine algae have been recognized as a rich resource of new
and unusual organic molecules with diverse biological properties.
The current need to develop new antifungal, anticancer, antibiotic
and antiviral drugs has led to an intense research effort into the
discovery, isolation and structure determination of potential
medicinal agents from...
My investigations of the natural products of marine algae have resulted in
the discovery of several new secondary metabolites. Bioassay-guided
fractionation led to the isolation of these new compounds and spectroscopic
analysis was utilized in their structural characterization.
Two new and potent antimitotic metabolites, curacins B and C, were
isolated...
This thesis describes investigations of marine algal secondary metabolites, with particular interest in their biomedical and agrichemical potential. Invaluable in such pursuits have been the access and application of advanced spectroscopic techniques, such as NMR, and the ability to assess the biological activity of the algal samples in a variety...
This thesis details my investigations of marine cyanobacterial natural products that resulted in the discovery of thirteen new secondary metabolites, the isolation of over fifteen previously reported metabolites and the biosynthetic investigation of two additional cyanobacterial compounds. Two novel lipopeptides were identified from a Lyngbya majuscula and Schizothrix sp. assemblage...
Molecular genetic and enzymological techniques have been employed to study secondary metabolite biosynthesis. These investigations have focused on two projects: the cloning and heterologous expression of biosynthetic gene clusters from unculturable marine organisms and the characterization of individual enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of the antifungal agent blasticidin S. The...