Event

Title: “The Deep Oceans: Discovering Chemical Complexity and Exploring the Opportunity for New Medicines” Natural Products have provided the foundation for organic chemistry by providing structural complexity and unpredicted chemical reactivities. These resources have also been the foundation of drug discovery with an estimated 50% of today’s drugs being derived from natural sources. Recent revelations defining chemically-rich microbes from the vast deep ocean environment has provided unprecedented access to new sources of chemically unique and highly bioactive molecules. Given the historic role of microorganisms in providing our current arsenal of antibiotics and anticancer drugs, this finding provides an expanded opportunity for the discovery of new treatments for cancer, infectious diseases and other diseases of current concern. This presentation will focus on how the deep oceans are being explored, how these unique microbes are being defined and cultured, and will emphasize the chemical and pharmacological novelty of the molecules being harvested from the ocean. Reception to follow.