Drug Discovery Model

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Historically, pharmaceuticals were discovered by mere happenstance. Traditionally plants were the major source of drug therapies. Different parts of the plant (e.g. roots, rhizome, leaves, seeds, flowers) would be used to make crude extracts. It wasn’t until 1928 when Dr. Alexander Fleming discovered the antibiotic properties of Penicillium notatum that the use of metabolites from microbes would bring about a huge change in the drug discovery model (Rubin, R.P., 2007). In more recent times, the identification of active ingredients from traditional therapies has led to the purification of crude extracts and increased drug potency. With the development of computer software and modern biotechnology techniques, screening millions of compounds has become incredibly easy. Chemists then attempt to modify potential target chemicals in order to produce a drug that has the desired effect with little cytotoxicity. However, this technique is lengthy, expensive and inefficient. The most recent model has been to revert back to natural products or semisynthetic drugs.
Many of the traditional sources of natural products have been exploited, however a relatively untapped source of natural products come from marine derived microbes, specifically marine sediment bacteria. The vast diversity of the world’s marine environments creates the potential for incredible biodiversity among microorganisms that take up residence there. Because many of the natural products of biological significance is due to a microbes need to compete with in its surrounding, this extreme diversity creates an incredible potential for discovery.
In recent years there has been a relatively large interest in marine microbes and as such some incredible natural products have ...

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