Drug discovery returns to the wild

摘要

Nestled between the Arabian Peninsula and Africa is the Red Sea, snaking up from the Indian Ocean. It is home to thousands of species of marine life, and is a popular destination for scuba divers, thanks to its coral reefs and brightly coloured fish. But not all the visitors are there purely to enjoy the spectacle. Armed with plastic bags and knives, a group of researchers dive to a depth of 20 metres in their quest to discover new drugs. The researchers, from the bacterial natural products laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, along with collaborators from the department of zoology at Tel Aviv University are diving to collect sea sponges.