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Throughout human history natural products have  provided the basis for medicinal treatment. About 60 years ago the advent of  SCUBA diving techniques granted access to a thitherto untapped source of  pharmacologically highly active natural products: the marine environment. In the  oceans not plants but sessile animals, particularly sponges, have proven to be  the most fruitful organisms in this context. Sponges have evolved a vast arsenal  of chemical weapons to defend themselves against various threats from their  environment. These molecules remarkably often show potent activities in  pharmaceutical assays. Several sponge-derived compounds are already in clinical  trials as agents against cancer, microbial infections, inflammation and other  diseases. However, in many cases drug development is severely hampered by the  limited supply of the respective compounds, as they are often present only in  minute amounts in the sponge tissue. Big hope to circumvent this obstacle lies  on the supposition that sponge-associated bacteria and not the sponges  themselves are in many cases the true producers of the pharmaceutically relevant  agents. Once these microorganisms are determined and cultivated outside the  sponge tissue, they could be fermented for large-scale compound production. This  in future could substantially increase the number of powerful sponge-derived  drugs on the market.

Biotechnological Potential of Marine Sponges and their Associated Bacteria as Producers of New Pharmaceuticals (Part I)