Faced with limits in developing medicine from terrestrial living resources, people have begun to turn their eyes towards marine living resources. Significant progress has been made, with half of the anti-cancer drugs that have been newly developed since 2000 being either directly or indirectly derived from marine life.
The challenges in the marine environment are different from that on land, which makes cultivation and farming, as well as collection very difficult. The development of intricate analytical and chemical technology is critical to collecting and identifying marine substances that hold potentia
Cone shells are marine gastropod mollusks constituting the genus Conus and the family Conidae. Cone shells must be dealt with carefully as their venom can be deadly poisonous. In the India-Pacific region, there are many incidents of people getting stung by cone shells, and in fact, about 10 people die each year as a result. Since the venom is deadly, cone shells should never be possessed in pockets of pants and when touching them, one should hold the rear part as the venom is located in the front.
Ecteinascidin 743, which is a natural substance derived from ascidians that live in the Caribbean Sea, shows excellent anticancer potential. This substance was first separated and refined from an ascidian, Ecteinascidia turbinate by Professor Kenneth L. Rinehart at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. After the synthesis method was first published in 1996, diverse effects of ecteinascidin-743 for treating cancer were confirmed, and it began to be sold to the general public in 2007.
Pseudopterosin, which is extracted from soft corals in the Caribbean Sea, are substances with anti-inflammatory attributes. Wrinkle-free cosmetics have taken advantage of this, and research on developing anti-inflammatory drugs is also underway.
Medicine, dietary supplements, and cosmetics that combine marine living resources such as squalene from shark's liver, EPA and DHA from tuna eyeballs, with bioengineering technologies hold much potential. More recently, substances like bryostatin, an anti-cancer drug extracted from marine bryozoans, and ARA-A which is effective for chronic hepatitis B extracted from the sea surface have also gained much scientific and commercial attention.
One area of great interest is the use of poisons in medicine. The poison of a blowfish is a neurotoxin, which interrupts neurotransmission by blocking the signal of neurotransmitters. As a result, locomotive organs or sensory organs stop functioning and ultimately leads to death. When one consumes the poison of a blowfish, he or she vomits and loses senses around the mouth after 5 minutes, and facial muscles become paralyzed after 10 minutes. After 15 minutes paralysis spreads to other parts of the body, and eventually the paralysis of the diaphragm disables breathing causing death. Since blowfish poison interrupts neurotransmission by blocking signals, scientists are interested in the use of blowfish poison as a way to treat pain.
※ The texts were written based on the outcome of "Development of Ocean Education Textbook" and "Development of Contents for Ocean Education Textbook" projects conducted by the Korea Maritime Foundation in 2010 and 2011.
