Improved Isolation of Marine Natural Products

The overall goal of this R&D program is to develop improved methodologies and manufacturingprocesses for the isolation of marine natural products with anticancer or anti-HIV activity. Thetherapeutic potential of marine natural products has rapidly advanced in recent years. One suchpotential therapeutic is bryostatin I which is derived from the marine bryozoan Bugula neritana. Whileharvesting the bryozoan with consistent sources of the active agent will become a significant portionof the supply problem, large-scale manufacturing of the natural product agent will also pose significantchallenges to processing logistics and manufacturing costs. Our specific aim is to investigate theapplication of supercritical fluid extraction and chromatography for the isolation and purification ofbryostatin I since these techniques have shown promise for the large scale manufacturing of certainanti-cancer agents such as taxol from terrestrial biomass sources. In this effort, we plan to collaboratewith CalBioMarine who will supply both naturally occurring and aquacultured quantities of B. neritina.This investigation should lead to the establishment of improved manufacturing processes for producinglarge quantities of marine natural product agents needed for preclinical and clinical development.