Preface

Cancer remains one of the most life-threatening diseases and its prevalence is increasing worldwide especially in countries that are witnessing urbanization and rapid industrialization changes. In 2018 alone, about 18 million new cases of cancer were reported globally, resulting in approximately 10 million deaths. Cancer treatments do not have potent medicine as the currently available drugs are causing side effects in some instances. Hence, identifying novel effective drugs is urgently needed, and many ongoing research programs are in the process of identifying new anti-cancer drugs from marine organisms which are considered “blue drug banks” of unique anti-cancer compounds with diverse groups of chemical structures. Seven marine-based pharmaceuticals have so far been approved for marketing; 23 compounds are in clinical trials between phases I and III; and over one thousand compounds isolated from marine organisms are undergoing preclinical studies. It is worthy of mention here that among those marine organism-derived compounds in clinical use, four compounds viz. cytarabine (Cytosar®), trabectedin (Yondelis®), eribulin mesylate (Halaven®) and the conjugated antibody brentuximab vedotin (Acentris®) are used in the treatment of cancer.

Though a few books are presently available on marine natural products and pharmaceutical marine life, a comprehensive volume dealing with the biodiversity of marine organisms yielding anticancer compounds has not so far been published. This interdisciplinary publication first of its kind would answer this long-felt need. It deals mainly with the ecology, and biology of marine organisms yielding anticancer compounds and their mechanism of action. It is hoped that the present publication when brought out would be of great use as a standard text-cum-reference for teachers, students, and researchers of various disciplines such as biomedical sciences, pharmaceutical sciences, marine biology, and fisheries science; a valuable reference for libraries of colleges and universities; and as a guide for the pharmaceutical industries involved in the development of new marine-derived anticancer drugs.