International collaboration in research of the medical potentialities of the Caribbean Sargasso
Résumé
A considerable number of drug candidates is from marine bio-prospection and highlights the blue biotechnologies field. World Health Organization, aware of the serious global environmental crisis, encourages countries holding local species to do a pharmacological screening (bioprospection) work focusing on the current "4 global scourges": Cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer, Malaria. Since 2011, Martinique, a Caribbean island, is undergoing a massive seaweed Sargassum invasion (Blunt et al., 2008). Global climate change might have forced the Sargasso Sea to move further south, closer to the Caribbean Sea (Velasco, 2015). The species involved are Sargassum natans (SN) and Sargassum fluitans (SF). It is known that, among the more than 350 species of Sargasso around the world, many species contain biologically active marine natural products exhibiting various biological activities (Yende, Harle, & Chaugule, 2014). This project will aim to 1) Detect potential pharmaceutical uses (screening) of Sargassum natans and Sargassum fluitans on diseases widely spread in Caribbean, 2) Characterize the influence of Sargassum natans and Sargassum fluitans exposure on the evolution of the targeted pathologies 3) Sensitize the local authorities to the utility of fundamental research for the development and the attractivity of Martinique.
The international teams engaged are experts in their respective area of research. This intimate collaboration between biologists and chemists provides an optimal interdisciplinary environment opening the perspective to rely biological activities to molecular identification and represents an opportunity for developing the research topic with high originality and novel concepts.