Scientists Search Deep Sea Reefs for Wonder Drugs 144
ScienceDaily is reporting that a team of scientists will be venturing some 2000-3000 feet below the ocean surface in order to explore deep-sea reefs discovered last December. From the article: "A primary goal of the upcoming expedition, which is funded largely by the State of Florida's 'Florida Oceans Initiative,' will be to search for marine organisms that produce chemical compounds with the potential to treat human diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's."
Cancer (Score:1, Informative)
This is pretty common, actually (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Cancer (Score:3, Informative)
Are you sure? Disease [reference.com]:
Reef Etiquette (Score:4, Informative)
It takes 30,000 years to grow 1 cubic inch of coral, and the mistreatment of the reefs around Florida (1960s dynamite fishing, jewelry harvesting, etc.) has made it so that the reef off of the Florida Keys is the last living coral reef in the region.
Re:Curse of the Blue Gold (Score:3, Informative)
Here is a lab that does this.
http://www.umich.edu/~lsi/institute/labs/sherman/
Re:Reef Etiquette (Score:4, Informative)
Human Papilloma Virus (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, you'd be surprised. Nothing gets into your cells and screws up your DNA like a virus.
Have you heard of HPV (Human Papilloma Virus)? It's a very-common (family) of sexually-transmitted viruses. We've known for a long time that certain types of HPV are the cause of cervical and ovarian cancer in women and testicular cancer in men (e.g.: these cancers are STDs), and more recent research has shown that HPV is also linked to certain forms of skin cancer.
In other words: Yes, cancer can be and often is caused by infectious diseases!
Re:Curse of the Blue Gold (Score:4, Informative)
Synthesized in-vitro on a commercial scale? Look at Taxol [wikipedia.org]. It took over 20 years to design a commercially viable synthesis method.
Galanthamine? [wikipedia.org] To my knowledge, no commercially viable method exists.
Notice to all sea sponges: Don't panic (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Curse of the Blue Gold (Score:3, Informative)
http://magic-city-news.com/article_5888.shtml [magic-city-news.com]
All this in light of yesterdays article about plagerism [slashdot.org].