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World Oceans Day Sea of Knowledge
08 June 2013

Sea of Knowledge

There’s something in the water. A cornucopia of life flourishes within our planet’s oceans, and this hidden world might hold the cure to some of today’s most devastating diseases. Take the recently developed cancer drug, trabectedin: it comes from the humble sea squirt and was discovered during a burst of marine bioprospecting – searching the seas for natural products that might cure human ills. This underwater scavenger hunt has yielded 10,000 products in the last two decades and provided countless avenues for new drug development research. Taq polymerase – a heat-resistant DNA-forming enzyme that is today a crucial lab tool used in DNA analysis techniques – was first found in bacteria crowding around deep-water vents. A tropical sea snail gave the world the popular painkiller ziconotide. The list is ever-growing, and with unknown depths still to be plundered, we might be on the crest of a tidal wave of discoveries.

Written by Anthony Lewis

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BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

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