Bioassay-Guided Isolation of Marine Natural Products for Drug Discovery

Dear Colleagues,

From the potential human harm caused by the exquisitely potent dinoflagellate cytotoxins, maitotoxin and brevetoxin, through the knowledge gained regarding cellular function and metabolism from the use of latrunculin and laulimalide, right through to new blockbuster anticancer drugs like Eribulin mesylate and Trabectedin, the bioassay-guided isolation of new marine natural products has informed science and helped save many lives over the past half century. The new and exciting molecules sourced from the marine environment are varied in structure and, most importantly, the wide ranging and diverse potent bioactivities they possess. With a significantly greater number of phyla represented in our marine environments than that found on land, the sheer biodiversity found in the oceans, coupled with difficulties, and hence opportunities for obtaining marine organisms, continue to make investigations of marine natural products a lucrative area for medicinal and biochemical research.

Given the great value still waiting to be discovered from the life within our planet’s oceans, as the Guest Editor of this Special Issue of Marine Drugs, I personally invite you to contribute your latest research describing bioassay-guided isolation and identification of novel, bioactive marine natural products, from any marine-based organisms.

Dr. Rob Keyzers
Guest Editor

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