RETURN TO PORT: On April 25, 2007 the Galathea 3 expedition arrived at Langeliniekaj Terminal in Copenhagen with Crown Prince Frederik onboard.THOMAS BREDOL/WWW.BREDOL.DK/PHOTOIn 2006 and 2007, systems biologist Lone Gram sailed the seven seas—returning with a boatload of bacteria. Gram, a professor at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), was a member of Galathea 3, a round-the-world research expedition that used a rebuilt Danish naval vessel as its mother ship. Her team took microbial samples from “anything that was brought on board—seaweed, sediment, deepwater sponges, Arctic ice fish . . .”
Gram and colleagues were on the hunt for new drugs—mainly antibiotic and antivirulence compounds. Most of our current antibacterial medicines are derivatives of compounds from microbes such as the mold Penicillium and Actinobacteria. However, our current arsenal of antibiotics is losing its usefulness, thanks to an upsurge in the number of resistant strains. Every year in Europe alone, antibiotic-resistant bacteria kill an estimated 25,000 people.
Drug development is experiencing a sea change, looking to the ocean for potential medicines.
To find new antibiotics, researchers have explored libraries of synthetic chemicals and compounds from land-based microorganisms. But drug development is experiencing a sea change, looking to the ocean for potential medicines. “Seawater has a million microbes per milliliter, with even more potential for diversity in sediment ...
