MANILA, Philippines?The Department of Science and Technology, recognizing the medical potentials of one of the highest biodiverse seas in the world, has granted an initial P129 million to fund a group of marine scientists? search for anti-pain and anti-infective agents from marine life.

The project, known as the Philippine Pharmaseas Drug Discovery Program, involves studying sponge-associated microorganisms for anti-infective agents, and turrid snails for anti-pain agents.

Potential sources

Scientists in the program explained that venomous turrid snails were most likely potential sources of anti-pain drugs because of their successful diversification as a species, which number over 12,000.

In granting the fund, DOST had entered into an agreement with the University of the Philippines-Diliman and the Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development. The PharmaSeas team is composed of local scientists, medical doctors as consultants and foreign based scientists as collaborators. Among the participating institutes is the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine.

UP Marine Institute Prof. Giselle Concepcion, project leader of the PharmaSeas Drug Discovery Program, said the project would be the first for a number of reasons.

Many firsts

It would be the first time that a ?very substantial funding would be acquired for marine drug discovery,? and the first time that ?the government gives big support for work on venomous snails and microorganisms.?

As such, Concepcion added it would also be the first time the scientists would be able to acquire and use the 500 MHz NMR and the LC-MS/MS equipment that will allow them to determine the chemical structures of the compounds they will isolate.

Aside from the major equipment, the DOST funding would provide substantial support for manpower, and would allow the scientists to file molecular patents and protect the team?s intellectual property.

Still, the team?s scientists caution that the time between substance isolation and drug development would still take a considerable amount of time.

Start working now

Science Secretary Estrella F. Alabastro stressed that the country has to start working now or else it would never have a chance at drug discoveries.

UP President Emerlinda R. Roman said ?the world, and the country, is in dire need of new antibiotics and anti-infective drugs because many infectious pathogens have developed resistance to existing drugs, and the drug industry?s antibiotic pipeline is running dry.? She stressed that the tens of thousands of microbial species and marine microorganisms found in Philippine seas could provide newovel antibiotics.

Concepcion said that in the last decade, the number of new antibiotics and other anti-infective agents that have been developed has dwindled significantly.

Need for new drugs

New anti-infective drugs are needed urgently all over the world, particularly in tropical countries like the Philippines, due to the rising incidence of new drug-resistant infections.

Concepcion cited tuberculosis, Nosocomial or hospital-acquired Gram-positive infection such as S. aureus (a serious threat to elderly and immunosuppressed patients) and dengue fever as among the most serious infections that require new drugs.

?Unfortunately, many multinational drug companies are not willing to invest significantly in drugs for infections found in developing countries where the market is not large and lucrative. Thus, we must aim to contribute to anti-infective drug discovery and development efforts ourselves,? Concepcion said.

RP marine biodiversity

Roman said the Philippine marine biodiversity has been a source of new drugs in the past, the most recent of which is a conopeptide, first isolated from a Philippine cone snail, which became the anti-pain drug known as Prialt sold commercially today.

?The country did not benefit directly from that discovery, but today we have the great potential to benefit from future discoveries of PharmaSeas similar to Prialt,? Roman said.

The project fund will be released by DOST to PCARMD, which will release the fund to UPD. The project will be undertaken by UPD and will be monitored by PCARMD.

Various components

The project involves various components, which include collection of turrid samples and sponges, establishment of a bioinformatics database for the collected samples, characterization and culture optimization, chemistry, bioassays, drug discoveries and development.

It also involves identifying relationships between bioecological parameters and chemical activities of turrids and sponges, their ecology, biology and bioinformatics.

Concepcion described the funding support as a ?starting point? of the PharmaSeas Marine Drug Discovery Program and stressed that the program is a collective effort involving many of her colleagues in UP.

?In our country, where there are so few of us scientists, I believe we must band together and pursue integrated, collaborative research.

?Marine drug discovery and marine biotechnology are within DOST?s priority areas today. DOST is awarding us one of the biggest fundings it has ever given for basic R&D and we thank DOST for it,? Concepcion said.