Thomais Vlachogianni
Greece
Research Article
Bioactive Natural Substances from Marine Sponges: New Developments and Prospects for Future Pharmaceuticals
Author(s): Stamatios Perdicaris, Thomais Vlachogianni and Athanasios ValavanidisStamatios Perdicaris, Thomais Vlachogianni and Athanasios Valavanidis
In the last decades researchers of natural products chemistry focused their research in a wide variety of bioactive compounds from marine species. Marine sponges (Porifera) have been ranked very high in the priority of natural product research because the discovery of a wide range of bioactive chemical components and secondary metabolites with potential pharmaceutical applications gave promising results. These discoveries have attracted the attention of pharmaceutical chemistry experts, cell biologists, chemists of natural products and medical practitioners. Since the 1950s, when a number of the first publications appeared in the scientific literature, some bioactive natural chemicals from marine sponges gave successful examples of pharmaceuticals. Initial experimental results suggest that sponges have the potential to provide future drugs against important diseases, such as cancer, a.. View More»
