Marine Bioprospecting in Southern Africa

Natural products isolated from marine invertebrate fauna and their associated microbial communities are globally recognized as potentially rich sources of new pharmaceuticals, especially anti-cancer agents. With the exception of southern Africa, Africa’s marine biodiversity is generally poorly described especially from marine biota found in the more remote and largely inaccessible areas along Africa’s 30,500-km-long coastline. Over the last four decades, bioprospecting for new medicinal compounds from African marine organisms has generally been confined to the marine invertebrate communities residing off the more accessible southern African coast. A total of 18 South African marine natural products have been patented for their anti-cancer activity with the marine tube worm metabolite cephalostatin 1 and a synthetic analogue of the sponge metabolite hemiasterlin, showing the greatest promise for new drug development.