Foreword

I am delighted to write this foreword, not only because Prof. Ramasamy Santhanam, one of the authors, has been my teacher and colleague for more than 30 years, but also because I believe deeply in the educative value of the contents of this book for all the stakeholders in Fisheries and pharmaceutical Education.

Nature is considered to be an ancient pharmacy serving as the solitary source of therapeutics for thousands of years. Almost all of the current natural product-derived therapeutics have their terrestrial origins. The marine environment has also become a promising source of bioactive molecules and drugs of therapeutic use. Recent research findings have shown that marine organisms possess a higher incidence of significant bioactivity compared with terrestrial organisms. In a National Cancer Institute preclinical cytotoxicity screening, 1% of the examined marine samples exhibited anti-cancer potential versus 0.1% of the tested terrestrial samples. The number of new marine bioactive compounds reported each year is also increasing considerably, and more than 1000 new such compounds have been reported each year. However, the path to drug discovery from marine organisms faces several challenges. Lack of advancements in sampling techniques, taxonomic identification of therapeutically important marine species, compound structure determination strategies, etc. represent crucial steps in marine drug discovery.

The present volume titled “Marine Biopharmaceuticals: Scope and Prospects” the first of its kind is written by both the experts of pharmaceutical and fisheries disciplines and it deals with the pharmaceutically important marine organisms; and their bioactive compounds, chemical classes and modes of action. It also deals with the techniques in the development of marine biota-derived drugs; and the constraints and remedial measures. The chapter on the introduction of an inter-disciplinary PG degree program on the hitherto unknown but productivity course viz. Marine Bio-Pharmacy will help drug companies acquire trained personnel in the development of new marine drugs.

I congratulate the authors for their timely publication for the benefit of the Fisheries and Pharmaceutical sector.