July 20, 2022 • 40 mins
The future of our pharmaceuticals are from down under.... the surface of course!
Coral reefs are the new tropical rainforests when it comes to drug research. When you think about it, how else do you protect yourself when you are a sea sponge, you can't move, don't have any spines or spikes and are free game for any of the thousands of species living nearby? Well chemistry of course! Turns out some of this chemistry may help with the future of our pharmaceuticals!
In today's episode we chat with Dr. Marc Slattery from the University of Mississippi all about his work trying to uncover the future of pharmaceuticals from reefs around the world.
For more information on the future of drugs from the sea and Dr. Marc Slattery's research click here. To watch his Ted talk "Drugs from the Sea: What do we lose when Coral reefs die?" click here.
Interested in helping our coral reefs? Here are a couple organisations doing great work in Coral Reef Conservation, Restoration and Research!
The Coral Reef Alliance As one of the largest global NGOs focused exclusively on protecting coral reefs, the Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL) has used cutting-edge science and community engagement for nearly 30 years to reduce direct threats to reefs and to promote scalable and effective solutions for their protection.
Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology works on coral reefs, tropical marine ecosystems that protect coastlines, support tourism, and provide nutrition to many island nations. Our focus is on defining biological traits that drive the differences in performance among corals and reefs.
The Coral Restoration Foundation We are actively restoring coral reefs on a massive scale, educating others on the importance of our oceans, and using science to further coral research and coral reef monitoring techniques.
The Coral Reef Research Foundation is based in Palau and does original research to acquire the knowledge needed to understand and make intelligent decisions related to conservation, climate change and resource management.
The Mote Marine Laboratory Coral Reef Restoration Program in Florida, US develops and applies science-based strategies with the goal of restoring depleted coral reefs in our lifetime. Specifically, Mote researchers are working to optimize restoration using diverse coral genotypes (genetic varieties), prioritizing native genetic varieties that can resist SCTLD and other stressors such as increased water temperatures and ocean acidification.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
David Evans (00:06):
Welcome to today's deep dive episode. Today we're
speaking with Dr. Mark Slattery,professor from the University of
Mississippi. And he actuallyworks in the School of
pharmacology. So drugs,medicines, that kind of thing.
But he's actually a classicallytrained ecologist, and he
focuses on coral reefs. And whenso many organisms live so
(00:28):
closely together, there's alwaysgoing to be competition. Now,
when you're in a marine or afreshwater ecosystem, how can
you use other things forcompetition? Well, you can
produce interesting chemistry,to actually make sure that you
and your species are successfulover others. And so that's what
Dr. Mark is so interested in,and how we could use this
(00:50):
interesting chemistry from theseinteresting places. And how we
can use this to address humandiseases and how we can use it
to improve human life. So sitback, relax, and get ready to
learn a little bit more aboutwhy you should care about coral
reefs when you go to your localpharmacy. Sir, Barney, G. nippy,
(01:23):
Oh, me?
No, zero to marry a cheap,Chinese way. Why net? Water we
(01:47):
doing? And how can we do better?
Your one stop shop foreverything water related from
discussing water to use in theorganisms that depend on it. For
all the global issues that youreally never knew all had to do
with water. I'm your host, DavidEvans from the aquatic biosphere
(02:08):
project. And I just want to askyou something. What are we
doing? And how can we do better?
I and welcome to another deepdive episode. Today we're
(02:30):
talking with Dr. Mark Slatteryfrom University of Mississippi.
Mark, would you like to justintroduce yourself? Let our
listeners know a little bitabout yourself and what you do
for work?
Dr. Marc Slattery, Univer (02:40):
Sure.
So I'm Mark Slattery, I work atthe University of Mississippi in
the School of Pharmacy. Which isfunny, because I'm actually a
classically trained marineecologist. And my research
interests are actually well,they've been on coral reefs for
a number of years. But morespecifically, I'm interested in
the chemicals that marineorganisms produce and why they
produce them. And as anecologist, I'm more interested
(03:03):
in the specifics of how theywork for the organism, that's,
that's using them. But theSchool of Pharmacy sort of
recognize that the work I wasdoing had some application to
drug discovery drugs from thesea. And so that's sort of
become a secondary interest ofmine over the years. And yeah,
that that's what we'll betalking about a little more
today.
David Evans (03:25):
Exactly, exactly.
So excited to learn more aboutthis and whole other wonder
underwater world that we neverreally think of when we think of
what we're going to get from ourmedicine cabinet. Really. So can
you give a bit of backgroundabout how we typically discover
new potential drugs and, and howeventually they make it to, to
individuals who need them?
Dr. Marc Slattery, Univer (03:46):
Yeah, so drugs as a whole, you kind of
think of sort of three differentlevels in terms of where they're
coming from. About a third ofthe drugs that are on your
pharmacist shelves are actuallycompounds that occur naturally
in the environment. Most of themin the past have come from like
trees and plants. And there washuge effort in tropical
(04:08):
rainforests, which have massiveamount of biodiversity. So a lot
of different types of life,meaning a lot of different types
of compounds out there thatmight lead to new drugs. And of
course, associated with thatthere were from indigenous
tribes and whatever, there wasinformation that oh, if you ate
the bark of this tree, or thatparticular leaf or whatever, you
might cure this particularailment or that particular
(04:30):
ailment. And so scientists haveused that information over time
to sort of drive their effortsin forests in terrestrial plant
scenarios. Obviously, the see isa new approach and we'll we'll
get to that in a minute. Theother two thirds of drugs are
coming from sort of two waysthat really smart chemists,
people that are much smarterthan I am. They're actually
(04:53):
building them in in thelaboratory. Some of the chemists
for about a third of thosecompounds are looking yet nature
and saying, Well, this lookslike it has in the past yielded
something that's interesting asan antimicrobial agent, for
instance. And so maybe if Ibuild similar structures, they
(05:14):
will have similar activities.
And so they've taken their leadfrom nature, but they're still
modifying or building in thelaboratory. More recently, there
are a second group of chemistsand these, these are the guys
who really think sort of at thecomputer level, they're instead
taking their lead from the drugtargets themselves. So they've
(05:35):
gone in and modelled thereceptors within the human body
and say, well, this receptor isfolded in this particular
orientation. And so if I build adrug that's going to fit down
into that in sort of a lock andkey mechanism, then that will be
a useful drug, their leads arefrom physiology of the
(05:57):
individual, rather than fromjust chemistry in nature. So
yet, you have a lot of third, athird and a third. And I'm sort
of in the group that is, let'sgo to nature. And let's see what
nature tells us. And again, as achemical ecologist, I recognize
that there's, there's things theanimals are teaching us. So a
(06:19):
lot of these compounds arecoming from organisms that are
attached to the bottom, likesponges and soft corals and
things that can't run away. Imean, in a, you know,
terrestrial system, you know,you have animals that run away
from predators or get away fromcompetitors, those sorts of
situations. But if you're stuckin one place, and you don't have
(06:41):
like armor or something toprotect you, then oftentimes you
got to produce chemistry to theold dousing Better Living
Through Chemistry, you got toproduce this chemistry to to, to
deal with your situation. Andeven there, some of it. So, for
instance, if it's a feedingdeterrent compound, there's
something nasty there. And thenwe take it into the lab and say,
(07:05):
Well, you know, that didn'ttaste very good, maybe that'll
have some activity. Morerecently, my wife and I are
dealing with with issues andcoral diseases. And we recognize
that these are animals that haveprimitive immune systems. And so
one of the ways they dealt withdiseases, much like we do, their
immune system is chemistry. Andso we say, well, you know, we're
(07:27):
out on the reef, and we'reseeing, you know, this
individuals disease, thisindividuals disease, and this
one right beside it isn't, isn'tpicking up the disease, and what
is it about it? Well, it'sproducing more chemistry. And so
we'll go in and find thecompounds that are knocking out
those diseases and say, Okay,well, but knocks out a disease
and a coral, maybe it'll lockout a disease and in a human
(07:51):
being, and so we've, we've takenthose approaches just going in
and sort of looking at theenvironment and, and sort of
parsing out what the environmentis telling us. That's our
approach with with chemistry inthe sea.
David Evans (08:06):
That's absolutely fascinating. And when I think of
looking for a new drug, my mindimmediately would go to another
mammal or, or something thatmore closely resembles a human
rather than the sea sponge orcoral. But just because we're
very vastly different organismdoesn't mean that we don't have
similar chemistry, that's reallyfascinating that you focus your
(08:29):
research on. Sure.
Dr. Marc Slattery, Universit (08:31):
So if you think about life on this
planet, which is, you know,existed now for close to 4
billion years, early on, it wasbacteria. And again, they sort
of lived in a situation where ifthey were going to interact with
other bacteria, whether it's to,you know, produce new bacteria,
(08:54):
so on and so forth, any sort ofinteraction had to be chemical
in nature, right. So they wereessentially talking to
themselves or communicating bythis, by this chemistry. And in
some cases, the bacteria, justlike, you know, human beings and
other sorts of animals, they'regoing to compete for resources.
So, you know, the way theyprevent other bacteria from from
(09:18):
living in the same space andtaking resources that they may
want is they were producingchemical compounds that were
antibiotics, they killed otherbacteria. And so in many ways,
the bacteria sort of startedthis whole craze of, of a
chemical ecology but b drugs insort of dealing with their
(09:40):
environment. And so we're tryingto take our lead from nature in
that respect and move forward.
And it's sort of gone that waythrough time, starting with the
most primitive single cell as aslife evolved, became
multicellular, but again, theyhadn't been around long enough
to produce shells and spines andbig T Then, and such like that,
and so they're, they're reallyfocused at this point on on
(10:03):
producing chemistry. So,chemistry has really been an
important part of life on thisplanet from the very beginning.
And, and it's they're availablefor us to, to use and in
different ways and, and in someways, very complementary to how
it was originally intended.
David Evans (10:23):
When you say like that, it makes total sense. So I
guess many people would be veryjealous of getting to spend so
much time around corals and, andsea sponges, was it a deliberate
choice to focus on marine andcoral reef ecosystems? Or just
happened to be a nicecoincidence? Or I guess, do you
spend much time out on the reef?
Or is it mostly back in the labwhere you're bringing back your
(10:46):
samples?
Dr. Marc Slattery, Univer (10:49):
Yeah, no, it's an interesting point.
So for me, it was verydeliberate getting into marine
ecology. I actually, when I wasfive years old, my parents
hauled me off to Jamaica, wherewe lived for about 10 years. And
so every chance I had, I was inthe water and usually snorkeling
along checking everything out,they, you know, my parents
(11:10):
couldn't call me out on thewater. I just loved it. And so
from an early age, I knew thatsort of what I wanted to do, I
mean, the reefs werespectacular, and, and pretty
fish. And I didn't know what Iwas going to do in marine
ecology, per se, but I knewthat's where I wanted to be. So
I've sort of worked my wholelife towards getting to that.
(11:30):
And over time, my interests andmy direction has sort of evolved
and changed. And, and the onething that sort of came together
was, again, this question of,well, how are these organisms
interacting, and at a baselevel, for me, it was all about
chemistry. And chemistry wasn'tlike, an easy fix. I mean, I I'm
(11:52):
not a great chemist, but I was,it's just everything that I was
interested in, ultimately camedown to sort of this chemical
nature. And so I've spent sometime doing that. As I said, I
ended up here at the Universityof Mississippi, because the
people here sort of recognizethat, oh, well, drugs that I was
looking at for ecological issuesmight have some some practical
(12:14):
lab issues as well. Andunfortunately, Ole Miss is
landlocked, I'm about 300 milesfrom the nearest ocean. And,
frankly, it's not really prettyout in front of, you know,
because we were right at themouth of the Mississippi River.
So it's, it's basically likeswimming and chocolate milk. So.
So for me, when I go to thefield, it's I usually go for two
(12:36):
or three weeks at a time, I geta lot of work done there. And
then we bring samples back tothe lab and spend a lot of time
sort of takes me a while to dothe chemistry. So that that
becomes kind of like theoffseason work that gets done
here. So yeah, I keep busy. Ienjoy doing what I do. I prefer
to be on the ocean. I hope toget back to the ocean soon.
(12:56):
COVID, as has made it verydifficult to do sort of the
field aspect of my workrecently. But but that's
absolutely where I'm where I'mhappiest.
David Evans (13:05):
Nice, nice. Are there any drugs that maybe
consumers would use? Or peoplewho are listening to this
podcast might be more familiarwith that originated from a
coral reef organism? Yeah, so
Dr. Marc Slattery, Universi (13:19):
let me back up and say that we're
still sort of in our infancyrelative to drug discovery from
the seas. Okay, we're notspeaking. I mean, scuba diving
started with Jacques Cousteau,what, you know, 5080 years ago,
something like that. So we've,we've had far less time doing
research in the oceans than wehave in tropical rainforest, and
(13:40):
so on and so forth. So with thatcaveat, there are a few
examples. But there certainlyaren't as many examples. And I
guess maybe the easiest way torun through this is just sort of
a brief history. And sort of theinteresting thing, or one of the
most interesting things is, ifyou look in the ancient
literature about 3000 years BC,in China, they were actually
(14:02):
taxing the public for a medicinefrom the sea. And we don't know
what that medicine is. It's justwritten up that way. So, so
people have been looking at theoceans as a source of even drugs
for you know, the better part of5000 years now, which is pretty,
pretty amazing when you thinkabout it. And so even like I
said, you know, whereas tropicalrainforest indigenous people
(14:26):
have have utilized their plants.
For drugs sources, people wererecognizing there's things to
deal with in the ocean. We knowmore specifically, a few 100
years ago that the ancientHawaiians actually used to dip
their spears into tide poolsinto an actual organism looks a
lot like an anemone. It's calledpalate pellicola. That produces
(14:49):
a toxin really strong toxincalled poly toxin. And they used
it much the same way that theindigenous rainfall various
tribes use poison dart frogsecretions to paralyze their
prey and that sort of thing. Sothere was a recognition that
there is something powerful inin these animals that that is
toxic, and is ultimately mightbecome a source of a plant. So
(15:13):
there's been some use of theoceans over the years with what
we now recognizes as a chemicalsource. And what the 1950s was
the first example of somebodywho actually extracted a sponge
and had an aim, crypto Theca,because it was very cryptic, it
actually lives in the sandgrains and such. And he isolated
(15:33):
two compounds that were known asera a and era C. And then again,
like I mentioned, using them assort of inspiration. He then
went to the lab and sort ofbuilt his own versions of those,
one of them became an antiviralcompound used, I think, for
(15:53):
herpes viruses, and the otherone became sort of an anti
cancer compound, but that wassort of the beginning of, of
drugs from the sea, as it were.
And around that time, there wereseveral chemists who were
starting to go in and makecollections and, and drag out
compounds. And on average, about5000 compounds every year are
(16:18):
found mostly from sponges,sponges seem to be a very rich
source of compounds for reasonsI can get into in a bit, but
they've been finding them andthen it's sort of like, well,
you have this compound, andyou've got a group down the hall
that that does some some sort ofbiomedical assay, let's throw it
in there and see if there's anyactivity. And you know, sorts
have been sort of hit or miss.
So over the years, and that hasmeant that we've probably seen
(16:42):
less targeted and specificactivity, and then we should,
nowadays, there's probably ahalf a dozen compounds that are
actually worldwide being used asdrugs, not all of them are here
in the United States, I thinkthe United States only has one
(17:03):
that has been actually approvedthrough clinical trials and
whatever else and that'ssomething that comes from the
cone snail. It's It's again, atoxin it was used, it's used by
the cones to paralyze theirprey, and it goes by the name
Xin Kona tide, it's used inmedicine as a painkiller, it's
(17:24):
actually 1000 times morepowerful than morphine, it
doesn't have the addictivenessor people can become resistant
to it as well. And so it doesn'thave the right properties. So
it's a very, very good compoundfor pain relief, it's typically
given only in in a hospitalsetting and has to actually go
(17:46):
into the spine. And so it's notsomething that you get on your,
on your shelves, per se, but itis a very, very powerful and
important tool in surgeries andthat sort of thing. But the
other compounds that are outthere in different countries,
there's one that comes from atourniquet called a kind of sit
in that is an anti cancer agent.
(18:07):
There is another one that comesfrom a sponge called disc
Thermolite. It's also an anticancer agent, a lot of these
things are actually cancer,because that's sort of been the
biggest push for drug discoveryfor yours. bryostatin is a
really interesting one, it comesfrom a bryozoan on the west
coast of California. And morerecently, they've realized its
(18:29):
symbiotic bacteria within thebryozoan. And we're now starting
to realize this is probably whysponges have been so
tremendously useful as well,because about anywhere from a
third to a half of the biomassof a sponge is actually internal
symbiotic bacterial cells. Andso a lot of times these bacteria
(18:53):
are actually producing thecompounds that we get out of the
sponges and such Oh, reallyinteresting. One that's out
there is something called pseudoterrorists, and it comes from a
gorgonian or like a sea fan thatoccurs in the Caribbean. It's
actually an anti inflammatoryagent, but it's actually being
used in Estee Lauder resilience.
So apparently, the compound ofinterest in that that I guess,
(19:18):
makes your face better orwhatever,
gave sort of an inflammationresponse. So people's faces
would kind of get read and stufflike this. So they actually
added some of this pseudoterrorist in in there to
actually knock down theinflammation response to
everything else that was in thein the compound. So that's being
(19:39):
used. So there's there's someinteresting leads out there is
interesting history of testingthese things through time. We're
still getting there. I'm notsure if I answered your earlier
question on how a drug actuallygets to market. But the reality
is, is you know, it's oftensomewhere in the neighborhood of
10 to 20 years of well, not justresearch but try to get through
(20:01):
the three phases of clinicaltrials, because classical
clinical trials, you know, youmight, you know, get 10,000
People with the drug, but thenyou're going to want to watch
him for four or five or sixyears to see what your long term
side effects are. And so drugdiscovery efforts can take quite
a while, I mean, that the parkthat I met in, which is in the
(20:22):
very beginning, where you grabsomething from the field, and
you start the process in thelab, that might be a year or
two, you know, sort of thelength of time of a typical
research grant, which is how Iget to the field. But at some
point, we're going to have topass it off to the sort of the
pharmaceutical industry, andthen then it really sort of
takes on and for every, usually1000 leads that you put into the
(20:46):
pipeline, you're lucky if youget one out. So it isn't, it is
a numbers game. And so then ifyou sort of look at the number
of years that, you know, we'vebeen doing drug discovery in the
ocean, and you, you sort of mapthat out, it sort of makes sense
that we're only at about five or10, you know, drug leads at this
point, but I guarantee you more,there's there's several in the
(21:08):
pipeline right now that aredoing pretty well, in phase one,
phase two. And, you know, Ipredict that probably in the
next, you know, three to fiveyears, we'll probably see a
doubling if not more, in termsof, of drugs from the city.
David Evans (21:24):
Well, that makes it a very exciting field to be in,
then you're at the forefront ofthis push and so excited to be
speaking with you about this.
Yeah. So I'm curious coralreefs, they seem to be as you
were saying, like just thesebiodiversity hotspots, are there
other marine or freshwaterhabitats that are really being
actively looked at? Or is itright now, the focus is
(21:44):
primarily on coral reefs,specifically because they have
such high diversity, or is thereother other habitats that are
really being targeted in aquaticenvironments?
Dr. Marc Slattery, Univer (21:56):
Yeah, no, that's a great point, I
think you're correct that coralreefs which are often considered
sort of the rainforest of theseas, high biodiversity, and
when you've got a lot of life inone area, you're obviously going
to see a greater opportunity to,to find new chemical sources.
But if you look at it, at leastthrough my eyes, as an
(22:19):
ecologist, that isn'tnecessarily where you're going
to find. So again, I'm lookingat it from the standpoint of the
animal is producing thesechemicals to do something for
it. And in some cases, it mightbe because there's a lot of
animals all sort of scrunchedtogether on a coral reef, there
might be a lot of competition,you might want to be producing
(22:40):
some chemistry there, there's,there's no doubt about that. But
there are other aspects, otherqualities of a habitat, that
might mean that you're going tohave to put extra energy into
the production of the chemistryso that you can survive there.
And so right now, one of theareas that I'm most passionate
about are what are known asMisa, photic reefs, and these
(23:02):
are the reefs, most coral reefecologist sort of get down to
about 100 feet maximum, becausethat's sort of the practical
depth of scuba diving. But thereef doesn't stop there. In
fact, the reef goes pretty deep.
And so I'm very interested thesedays in what's happening from
100 feet to 300 feet, whichthere's still very active reefs
down there, but they're belowsort of the depths of wealth,
(23:26):
where we see a lot of theanthropogenic disturbances. And
a lot of people look at thosereefs and say, those might be
sort of seed banks for futurereefs, right. And so there's
animals down there that aresurviving under conditions that
are less than optimal. And whenconditions are less than
optimal, then it often makessense to put some energy into
(23:46):
making sure that you're going tobe the most successful one and
the most successful one is theone that actually might produce
some interesting chemistry. Soso we're looking at these Musa
photic reefs, and I've actuallydone sort of a head to head
analysis of the species that Ifind there versus sometimes the
same species occurs on theshallower reef. In other cases,
it's just pure numbers, I findmore sponges down deeper and
(24:09):
bigger sponges. And even thoughthere's less fish down there
that might be feeding on them.
There is a lot more crampedtogether. So we actually see
higher levels of chemicaldefenses on the deep reefs than
we do in the shallow reefs,which is sort of interesting.
So. So I found a lot of activitythere. I actually got my start
(24:30):
doing research in Antarctica.
It's a very extreme environment.
Extreme environments seem to besort of a take home, the sponges
down there have a rich source ofchemistry as well. We've looked
back in caves, we found a lot ofinteresting chemistry back in
caves, and I guess in otherhabitats. So for instance, in
freshwater, one of the placesthey're finding a lot of
(24:50):
interesting things arehydrothermal vents, whether
that's in Yellowstone Park, theyhave a lot of hydrothermal vent
issues and so they find bacteriaAre there that are living at
these extremes? And doing very,very well. I know there's some
groups that are trying tocollect from the deep sea where
again, there is sort of anextreme environment. I think I
(25:10):
mentioned earlier disco dermallight that's actually comes from
a deep sea sponge, likesomething from several 1000
meters kind of thing. So it waspicked up by a submersible. So
yeah, I think we're justbreaking the surface. I think a
lot of the people who have beenfocused on coral reefs, I mean,
rightly so that, you know, thereis a lot of biodiversity there.
And so check it out. But it'salso nice to dive in warm water
(25:33):
with a lot of pretty fish. Andso that's kind of one of the
reasons why people still keeplooking there. And that gives me
and a few others an opportunityto check in places that are a
little less, less visited.
David Evans (25:47):
Nice, nice. My next question, Carl, Reese just
started these fascinatingconfluences of so many different
organisms all crammed together,as you were saying, and I always
hear that they're so valuable.
So in your eyes, are they sovaluable? Because they
potentially hold so muchpotential for drug discovery? Or
they have so much biodiversity,what in your eyes, makes a coral
(26:11):
reef valuable?
Dr. Marc Slattery, Universit (26:15):
So that's a great issue. And I've
I've had long discussions withother individuals, including my
own family who look at coralreefs, as you know, well, why
are we spending money to savethem when we've got people that
are homeless, you know, drugsfrom the seat, this is certainly
something that people can gettheir get their heads around, if
(26:36):
we find a new drug if we curecancer, or something that has
huge implications for society asa whole. And so I'm quite happy
to wave the flag for drugdiscovery, if it's going to help
save coral reefs for futuregenerations. I guess one of the
things I should point out,though, is since we are talking
about coral reefs, and sort oftheir importance, is the issue
(27:00):
of the sustainability of thesedrugs from the sea. So for
instance, when you're leaving acoral reef, one of the reasons
there's so much biodiversity,there's similar biomass to what
you have sort of in the kelpforests of California, where
there they only have, you know,a fraction of the number of
species. So you might have morespecies on coral reefs, but you
(27:21):
have fewer individuals. And soif one particular individual,
whether that's a sponge, or acoral or, or new to Brank, or
something is providing thatdrug, then you run into an issue
of supply. Okay, you can't justgo out and sort of rape and
pillage to get enough becausethere just isn't enough there.
(27:41):
In fact, to enter clinicaltrials, you're required to
produce one kilogram of thechemical that's going to be used
in the studies and kilogramwhile, that doesn't seem like a
lot, you know, what we'regetting out of these sponges
might be, you know, micrograms,or PICO grams. So you're talking
(28:03):
about from any given individual,you know, scaling that up,
you're talking about 1000s, ifnot 10s, of 1000s of individuals
to produce that amount ofchemistry. And so, so this has
become sort of the big challengeof how do you how do you make up
that difference? So one of thereasons why the chemists are
taking sort of their, their leadfrom the chemistry they find in
(28:27):
the oceans, and then sort ofdeveloping it along in the labs
by themselves, because they're,you know, you can do synthetic
chemistry and produce more ofit. It's awful and costly
process, but it can be done. Butthere are a couple of other
options that are available.
There's aquaculture, you couldpotentially if there was
something that was incrediblyimportant to have, you could
(28:47):
actually grow it and to seefarming, you know, they, they
farm a lot of terrestrial drugsand such from plants are being
farmed, and then taken into alab and extracted and used and
so there is aquaculture for fishthat we eat. And so one could
arguably do that approach forthese ones that are important
(29:08):
for drugs, and other is in themolecular biology era, we now
have the opportunity to go inand pull out the genes that are
responsible for the productionand particular chemistry. And
that's, I don't want this tocome off as like, well, that's
something we can just do. Imean, it's not not at the age of
Jurassic Park yet. Sort of rightknocking on the doors. And there
(29:33):
are challenges to pulling genesout putting them into a another
animal and telling it tooverproduce that particular
compound. But they're notinsurmountable. And so again, we
often archive the genome of anyindividual that we're working
with with the understanding thatwe can't necessarily do it
(29:54):
today. But maybe in the nextcouple of years, we're going to
be at the point where that isIt's more of a reality than it
was certainly when I started asa grad student in this business,
which back then it was all like,You got to get the chemistry
out. There's no, there's nooption for having the genes
produce it for you. So, so yeah,there are opportunities to to be
(30:15):
sustainable in this drugdiscovery effort as well.
David Evans (30:22):
That's a, that's a very interesting bringing
Jurassic Park into this, and howthat could help with the drugs
of the future. Coral reefs, theyjust seem to just be, yeah,
these amazing places, but makinga kilogram of a compound that
can be in just the most my newforms, it's a lot of work.
(30:43):
That's a, that's a, that's not asmall problem to to be a part
of. And I guess just roundingout the conversation about coral
reefs, what are some of the mainthreats to coral reefs from your
viewpoint?
Dr. Marc Slattery, Universi (30:54):
Oh, yeah. So you know, like
everything the biggest threat isman, I think there's still this
carryover thought of dilution isthe solution to pollution. And
so we've continued to use theoceans as our dumping grounds.
And we now recognize that thathas been a bad plan. The oceans
as a whole and coral reefs inparticular have been
(31:14):
tremendously impacted by stuffthat we put out on there. More
recently, climate change is atruly an existential threat. I
mean, we we talk about it interms of land, we see the
pictures of polar bears on theirmelting ice, or whatever. But in
the ocean itself. In coralreefs, there are tremendous
(31:35):
problems. One of them they talkabout is ocean acidification. As
we get more and more co2 pumpedinto the water, that changes the
acid base equilibrium, lowersthe pH to the point where it
becomes acidic. And many ofthese organisms are not able to
survive under those conditions.
Coral is one in particular thathas a calcium carbonate skeleton
(31:57):
and calcium carbonate. If you'veever put chalk into slightly
acid, you'll see that it justsort of dissolves away. And so
the reefs themselves, thestructure itself, can literally
just dissolve away. And thatdoesn't mean that the everything
out there is going to die. Butit certainly means there's
winners and losers and and reefsare changing. And as they
(32:19):
change, often for the worse, theorganisms that we want to be
around whether it's the ones I'minterested for, for drugs from
the sea, whether it's the, youknow, the fish that require that
structure that ultimately becomefood for various people, they're
just not able to make it underthese these changing conditions.
And so, so we certainly don'twant that. Another aspect of
(32:40):
climate change that's beenreally horrible of late is
thermal changes the risingtemperature, which leads to a
state known as coral bleaching,basically, you're you're heating
up the water, and the coralsthat rely on a delicate balance
with their photo symbionts getthrown out of balance or out of
whack, and all of a sudden, thecorals don't have that source of
(33:02):
energy anymore. And that meansthey're not able to produce
anything extra that's needed,like the chemistry that we've
been talking about, but theyalso can't produce enough energy
to survive themselves. So thatbecomes a problem. And sort of
the third area that people aremore aware of when we talk about
climate change is the increasingsevere storms, so massive
(33:23):
hurricanes, and that sort ofthing that go through and beat
up reefs. And you know, it takesdecades for these things to
recover. And so there again, ifsomething that was a large,
massive three dimensionalstructure that supporting that
biodiversity and stuff just getssort of beat down to, to rubble,
that isn't a reef that isn'tcertainly not the reefs that
(33:46):
we're used to. And so these,these are huge problems that we
have to overcome as a society,not just for the oceans, but for
humanity as a whole. Buthopefully, in doing that, we
will help our oceans whicharguably give us give us the
life on this planet.
David Evans (34:05):
Yeah, the increase in storms is brutal. But what
really took me it was the coralsnot having enough extra energy
to produce the chemistry thatthey need. I hadn't considered
that yet. That's, that's reallytroubling, especially if you
wanted to potentially, as you'resaying, Do aquaculture and be
able to produce these, you'dhave to watch out for storms and
(34:26):
sea temperature rise. And that'sinteresting. My last question
is, how can someone listening tothis podcast from a landlocked
area in North America helppreserve coral reefs?
Dr. Marc Slattery, Univer (34:40):
Yeah, so that brings up a great point,
and that is how can we dosomething to be better stewards
for the oceans? It often feelslike as an individual, we don't
have a lot of power andcertainly if you're landlocked
like I am today, you might noteven get to the oceans and be in
a position where you could forinstance, you know what? walk
along a beach and help withbeach cleanups or those sorts of
(35:03):
things. What else can you do?
Well, I would argue that one ofthe few powers we still have is
the power of the polls, we electofficials to do what we think
are important things for,whether it's our region or
society as a whole. And so callthose people to press just say,
Look, this is what I want. Theoceans are keeping this world
(35:24):
afloat. As it becomes harder forlife to live in the oceans, it's
going to become harder for thoseof us who are on land to live.
And so I really want you to goout there and support oceans,
whether it's increasing fundingpriorities to ocean research,
and ocean health, those arethings that you can push your
elected officials to do, I thinkit's really important these
(35:46):
sorts of outreach opportunities,talking to people who may not
know as much about these things.
Let them know why they shouldcare about the oceans, again,
you know, the potential fordrugs, a source of food, a
mechanism to prevent coastalerosion of the land that we're
used to, and arguably thecontrol of climate that has
(36:09):
implications not just for thecoral reefs in the ocean itself.
But as we've seen, these massivestorms are, whether they're
flooding coastal communities orleading to increase tornadoes in
the middle of the country. Soyeah, the point is, is that
things that we do to the oceanhave implications and the only
way we're going to do that is tohold our elected officials
(36:31):
accountable. And do that when itcomes time to elections. You
know, if there are people whoare not listening to you, as you
say, save the oceans then electsomebody who will do that give
support to outreach asfacilities, whether they're
local aquaria, or museum and getthat word out to the people. And
that I think is going to help asmuch as possible.
David Evans (36:53):
Well, thank you so much, Dr. Slattery for taking
the time to speak with us aboutthis. Absolutely fascinating
topic. I'm sorry for all thetechnical issues that we had to
go through. But thank you somuch for spending the time to
enrich our listeners ears withthis knowledge, and so excited
to see what comes next from thecoral reefs
Dr. Marc Slattery, Universi (37:12):
was great talking to you and your
listeners. Thanks, everyone.
David Evans (37:20):
Thank you so much to Dr. Mark Slattery for
speaking with me, and thepodcast about this incredible
topic. It's so incredible whenwe find new ways to value
things. And that's what I reallyam so thankful for with Mark
Slattery, because you showed usa way that we can value coral
reefs, and much more tangibleway that people can connect
with, rather than just as aplace to go or a place to
(37:44):
appreciate that, you know, it'sout there. So thank you for
that. I really appreciate youtaking the time, and sticking
with me who with our technicalissues that we had during the
recording of this, but it was itwas well worth it. And I really,
really think it's absolutelyfascinating. If you want to
learn more about coral reefrestoration, and recovery, and
just preservation andconservation in general, there's
(38:05):
so many different organizationsout there that are doing a
tremendous work in this field.
So I'll list a number of them inthe show notes. So be sure to
check that out. But definitelylook around where you are
locally, and see if there arethings that you can do locally,
that would help the larger goodas well. So be sure to check out
your local conservation groups.
And if there's an area thatyou're going to travel to spend
(38:26):
a vacation on, see if there'ssomething that you can do while
you're there as well to help outthose local conservation groups.
A little bit goes a long way.
I'm the host and producer DavidEvans. And I just like to thank
the rest of the team,specifically Paul apollomon, Lee
Burton, and the rest of theaquatic biosphere board. Thanks
for all of your help. And tolearn more about the aquatic
biosphere project and what we'redoing right here in Alberta
(38:48):
telling the story of water, youcan check us out at aquatic
biosphere.ca. And we also havelaunched our new media company,
a b n aquatic biosphere network,which you can find that the
public place dot online andsearch for the aquatic biosphere
network channel, where we willactually be posting all of the
video episodes that we're goingto be creating this year. So
(39:11):
tune in, they will be out forthe next little while, but very
excited to start sharing videocontent as well as our
interviews. Next week on thepodcast we're examining how
trans boundary water for youshare a river with another
country, how that can be usedfor conflict purposes, but also
how it can be used to createpeace in different regions of
the world. We're examiningArctic sovereignty, security and
(39:33):
diplomacy. We're looking at howwater as our borders or trans
Boundary Waters affect ournational interest and security.
globally. Tune in you won't wantto miss it. If you have any
questions or comments about theshow, we'd love to hear them.
Email us at conservation ataquatic biosphere.org. Please
don't forget to like, share andsubscribe. Leave us a review
(39:58):
really helps us out thanks andit's been a splash
Welcome to today's deep dive episode. Today we're
speaking with Dr. Mark Slattery,professor from the University of
Mississippi. And he actuallyworks in the School of
pharmacology. So drugs,medicines, that kind of thing.
But he's actually a classicallytrained ecologist, and he
focuses on coral reefs. And whenso many organisms live so
(00:28):
closely together, there's alwaysgoing to be competition. Now,
when you're in a marine or afreshwater ecosystem, how can
you use other things forcompetition? Well, you can
produce interesting chemistry,to actually make sure that you
and your species are successfulover others. And so that's what
Dr. Mark is so interested in,and how we could use this
(00:50):
interesting chemistry from theseinteresting places. And how we
can use this to address humandiseases and how we can use it
to improve human life. So sitback, relax, and get ready to
learn a little bit more aboutwhy you should care about coral
reefs when you go to your localpharmacy. Sir, Barney, G. nippy,
(01:23):
Oh, me?
No, zero to marry a cheap,Chinese way. Why net? Water we
(01:47):
doing? And how can we do better?
Your one stop shop foreverything water related from
discussing water to use in theorganisms that depend on it. For
all the global issues that youreally never knew all had to do
with water. I'm your host, DavidEvans from the aquatic biosphere
(02:08):
project. And I just want to askyou something. What are we
doing? And how can we do better?
I and welcome to another deepdive episode. Today we're
(02:30):
talking with Dr. Mark Slatteryfrom University of Mississippi.
Mark, would you like to justintroduce yourself? Let our
listeners know a little bitabout yourself and what you do
for work?
Dr. Marc Slattery, Univer (02:40):
Sure.
So I'm Mark Slattery, I work atthe University of Mississippi in
the School of Pharmacy. Which isfunny, because I'm actually a
classically trained marineecologist. And my research
interests are actually well,they've been on coral reefs for
a number of years. But morespecifically, I'm interested in
the chemicals that marineorganisms produce and why they
produce them. And as anecologist, I'm more interested
(03:03):
in the specifics of how theywork for the organism, that's,
that's using them. But theSchool of Pharmacy sort of
recognize that the work I wasdoing had some application to
drug discovery drugs from thesea. And so that's sort of
become a secondary interest ofmine over the years. And yeah,
that that's what we'll betalking about a little more
today.
David Evans (03:25):
Exactly, exactly.
So excited to learn more aboutthis and whole other wonder
underwater world that we neverreally think of when we think of
what we're going to get from ourmedicine cabinet. Really. So can
you give a bit of backgroundabout how we typically discover
new potential drugs and, and howeventually they make it to, to
individuals who need them?
Dr. Marc Slattery, Univer (03:46):
Yeah, so drugs as a whole, you kind of
think of sort of three differentlevels in terms of where they're
coming from. About a third ofthe drugs that are on your
pharmacist shelves are actuallycompounds that occur naturally
in the environment. Most of themin the past have come from like
trees and plants. And there washuge effort in tropical
(04:08):
rainforests, which have massiveamount of biodiversity. So a lot
of different types of life,meaning a lot of different types
of compounds out there thatmight lead to new drugs. And of
course, associated with thatthere were from indigenous
tribes and whatever, there wasinformation that oh, if you ate
the bark of this tree, or thatparticular leaf or whatever, you
might cure this particularailment or that particular
(04:30):
ailment. And so scientists haveused that information over time
to sort of drive their effortsin forests in terrestrial plant
scenarios. Obviously, the see isa new approach and we'll we'll
get to that in a minute. Theother two thirds of drugs are
coming from sort of two waysthat really smart chemists,
people that are much smarterthan I am. They're actually
(04:53):
building them in in thelaboratory. Some of the chemists
for about a third of thosecompounds are looking yet nature
and saying, Well, this lookslike it has in the past yielded
something that's interesting asan antimicrobial agent, for
instance. And so maybe if Ibuild similar structures, they
(05:14):
will have similar activities.
And so they've taken their leadfrom nature, but they're still
modifying or building in thelaboratory. More recently, there
are a second group of chemistsand these, these are the guys
who really think sort of at thecomputer level, they're instead
taking their lead from the drugtargets themselves. So they've
(05:35):
gone in and modelled thereceptors within the human body
and say, well, this receptor isfolded in this particular
orientation. And so if I build adrug that's going to fit down
into that in sort of a lock andkey mechanism, then that will be
a useful drug, their leads arefrom physiology of the
(05:57):
individual, rather than fromjust chemistry in nature. So
yet, you have a lot of third, athird and a third. And I'm sort
of in the group that is, let'sgo to nature. And let's see what
nature tells us. And again, as achemical ecologist, I recognize
that there's, there's things theanimals are teaching us. So a
(06:19):
lot of these compounds arecoming from organisms that are
attached to the bottom, likesponges and soft corals and
things that can't run away. Imean, in a, you know,
terrestrial system, you know,you have animals that run away
from predators or get away fromcompetitors, those sorts of
situations. But if you're stuckin one place, and you don't have
(06:41):
like armor or something toprotect you, then oftentimes you
got to produce chemistry to theold dousing Better Living
Through Chemistry, you got toproduce this chemistry to to, to
deal with your situation. Andeven there, some of it. So, for
instance, if it's a feedingdeterrent compound, there's
something nasty there. And thenwe take it into the lab and say,
(07:05):
Well, you know, that didn'ttaste very good, maybe that'll
have some activity. Morerecently, my wife and I are
dealing with with issues andcoral diseases. And we recognize
that these are animals that haveprimitive immune systems. And so
one of the ways they dealt withdiseases, much like we do, their
immune system is chemistry. Andso we say, well, you know, we're
(07:27):
out on the reef, and we'reseeing, you know, this
individuals disease, thisindividuals disease, and this
one right beside it isn't, isn'tpicking up the disease, and what
is it about it? Well, it'sproducing more chemistry. And so
we'll go in and find thecompounds that are knocking out
those diseases and say, Okay,well, but knocks out a disease
and a coral, maybe it'll lockout a disease and in a human
(07:51):
being, and so we've, we've takenthose approaches just going in
and sort of looking at theenvironment and, and sort of
parsing out what the environmentis telling us. That's our
approach with with chemistry inthe sea.
David Evans (08:06):
That's absolutely fascinating. And when I think of
looking for a new drug, my mindimmediately would go to another
mammal or, or something thatmore closely resembles a human
rather than the sea sponge orcoral. But just because we're
very vastly different organismdoesn't mean that we don't have
similar chemistry, that's reallyfascinating that you focus your
(08:29):
research on. Sure.
Dr. Marc Slattery, Universit (08:31):
So if you think about life on this
planet, which is, you know,existed now for close to 4
billion years, early on, it wasbacteria. And again, they sort
of lived in a situation where ifthey were going to interact with
other bacteria, whether it's to,you know, produce new bacteria,
(08:54):
so on and so forth, any sort ofinteraction had to be chemical
in nature, right. So they wereessentially talking to
themselves or communicating bythis, by this chemistry. And in
some cases, the bacteria, justlike, you know, human beings and
other sorts of animals, they'regoing to compete for resources.
So, you know, the way theyprevent other bacteria from from
(09:18):
living in the same space andtaking resources that they may
want is they were producingchemical compounds that were
antibiotics, they killed otherbacteria. And so in many ways,
the bacteria sort of startedthis whole craze of, of a
chemical ecology but b drugs insort of dealing with their
(09:40):
environment. And so we're tryingto take our lead from nature in
that respect and move forward.
And it's sort of gone that waythrough time, starting with the
most primitive single cell as aslife evolved, became
multicellular, but again, theyhadn't been around long enough
to produce shells and spines andbig T Then, and such like that,
and so they're, they're reallyfocused at this point on on
(10:03):
producing chemistry. So,chemistry has really been an
important part of life on thisplanet from the very beginning.
And, and it's they're availablefor us to, to use and in
different ways and, and in someways, very complementary to how
it was originally intended.
David Evans (10:23):
When you say like that, it makes total sense. So I
guess many people would be veryjealous of getting to spend so
much time around corals and, andsea sponges, was it a deliberate
choice to focus on marine andcoral reef ecosystems? Or just
happened to be a nicecoincidence? Or I guess, do you
spend much time out on the reef?
Or is it mostly back in the labwhere you're bringing back your
(10:46):
samples?
Dr. Marc Slattery, Univer (10:49):
Yeah, no, it's an interesting point.
So for me, it was verydeliberate getting into marine
ecology. I actually, when I wasfive years old, my parents
hauled me off to Jamaica, wherewe lived for about 10 years. And
so every chance I had, I was inthe water and usually snorkeling
along checking everything out,they, you know, my parents
(11:10):
couldn't call me out on thewater. I just loved it. And so
from an early age, I knew thatsort of what I wanted to do, I
mean, the reefs werespectacular, and, and pretty
fish. And I didn't know what Iwas going to do in marine
ecology, per se, but I knewthat's where I wanted to be. So
I've sort of worked my wholelife towards getting to that.
(11:30):
And over time, my interests andmy direction has sort of evolved
and changed. And, and the onething that sort of came together
was, again, this question of,well, how are these organisms
interacting, and at a baselevel, for me, it was all about
chemistry. And chemistry wasn'tlike, an easy fix. I mean, I I'm
(11:52):
not a great chemist, but I was,it's just everything that I was
interested in, ultimately camedown to sort of this chemical
nature. And so I've spent sometime doing that. As I said, I
ended up here at the Universityof Mississippi, because the
people here sort of recognizethat, oh, well, drugs that I was
looking at for ecological issuesmight have some some practical
(12:14):
lab issues as well. Andunfortunately, Ole Miss is
landlocked, I'm about 300 milesfrom the nearest ocean. And,
frankly, it's not really prettyout in front of, you know,
because we were right at themouth of the Mississippi River.
So it's, it's basically likeswimming and chocolate milk. So.
So for me, when I go to thefield, it's I usually go for two
(12:36):
or three weeks at a time, I geta lot of work done there. And
then we bring samples back tothe lab and spend a lot of time
sort of takes me a while to dothe chemistry. So that that
becomes kind of like theoffseason work that gets done
here. So yeah, I keep busy. Ienjoy doing what I do. I prefer
to be on the ocean. I hope toget back to the ocean soon.
(12:56):
COVID, as has made it verydifficult to do sort of the
field aspect of my workrecently. But but that's
absolutely where I'm where I'mhappiest.
David Evans (13:05):
Nice, nice. Are there any drugs that maybe
consumers would use? Or peoplewho are listening to this
podcast might be more familiarwith that originated from a
coral reef organism? Yeah, so
Dr. Marc Slattery, Universi (13:19):
let me back up and say that we're
still sort of in our infancyrelative to drug discovery from
the seas. Okay, we're notspeaking. I mean, scuba diving
started with Jacques Cousteau,what, you know, 5080 years ago,
something like that. So we've,we've had far less time doing
research in the oceans than wehave in tropical rainforest, and
(13:40):
so on and so forth. So with thatcaveat, there are a few
examples. But there certainlyaren't as many examples. And I
guess maybe the easiest way torun through this is just sort of
a brief history. And sort of theinteresting thing, or one of the
most interesting things is, ifyou look in the ancient
literature about 3000 years BC,in China, they were actually
(14:02):
taxing the public for a medicinefrom the sea. And we don't know
what that medicine is. It's justwritten up that way. So, so
people have been looking at theoceans as a source of even drugs
for you know, the better part of5000 years now, which is pretty,
pretty amazing when you thinkabout it. And so even like I
said, you know, whereas tropicalrainforest indigenous people
(14:26):
have have utilized their plants.
For drugs sources, people wererecognizing there's things to
deal with in the ocean. We knowmore specifically, a few 100
years ago that the ancientHawaiians actually used to dip
their spears into tide poolsinto an actual organism looks a
lot like an anemone. It's calledpalate pellicola. That produces
(14:49):
a toxin really strong toxincalled poly toxin. And they used
it much the same way that theindigenous rainfall various
tribes use poison dart frogsecretions to paralyze their
prey and that sort of thing. Sothere was a recognition that
there is something powerful inin these animals that that is
toxic, and is ultimately mightbecome a source of a plant. So
(15:13):
there's been some use of theoceans over the years with what
we now recognizes as a chemicalsource. And what the 1950s was
the first example of somebodywho actually extracted a sponge
and had an aim, crypto Theca,because it was very cryptic, it
actually lives in the sandgrains and such. And he isolated
(15:33):
two compounds that were known asera a and era C. And then again,
like I mentioned, using them assort of inspiration. He then
went to the lab and sort ofbuilt his own versions of those,
one of them became an antiviralcompound used, I think, for
(15:53):
herpes viruses, and the otherone became sort of an anti
cancer compound, but that wassort of the beginning of, of
drugs from the sea, as it were.
And around that time, there wereseveral chemists who were
starting to go in and makecollections and, and drag out
compounds. And on average, about5000 compounds every year are
(16:18):
found mostly from sponges,sponges seem to be a very rich
source of compounds for reasonsI can get into in a bit, but
they've been finding them andthen it's sort of like, well,
you have this compound, andyou've got a group down the hall
that that does some some sort ofbiomedical assay, let's throw it
in there and see if there's anyactivity. And you know, sorts
have been sort of hit or miss.
So over the years, and that hasmeant that we've probably seen
(16:42):
less targeted and specificactivity, and then we should,
nowadays, there's probably ahalf a dozen compounds that are
actually worldwide being used asdrugs, not all of them are here
in the United States, I thinkthe United States only has one
(17:03):
that has been actually approvedthrough clinical trials and
whatever else and that'ssomething that comes from the
cone snail. It's It's again, atoxin it was used, it's used by
the cones to paralyze theirprey, and it goes by the name
Xin Kona tide, it's used inmedicine as a painkiller, it's
(17:24):
actually 1000 times morepowerful than morphine, it
doesn't have the addictivenessor people can become resistant
to it as well. And so it doesn'thave the right properties. So
it's a very, very good compoundfor pain relief, it's typically
given only in in a hospitalsetting and has to actually go
(17:46):
into the spine. And so it's notsomething that you get on your,
on your shelves, per se, but itis a very, very powerful and
important tool in surgeries andthat sort of thing. But the
other compounds that are outthere in different countries,
there's one that comes from atourniquet called a kind of sit
in that is an anti cancer agent.
(18:07):
There is another one that comesfrom a sponge called disc
Thermolite. It's also an anticancer agent, a lot of these
things are actually cancer,because that's sort of been the
biggest push for drug discoveryfor yours. bryostatin is a
really interesting one, it comesfrom a bryozoan on the west
coast of California. And morerecently, they've realized its
(18:29):
symbiotic bacteria within thebryozoan. And we're now starting
to realize this is probably whysponges have been so
tremendously useful as well,because about anywhere from a
third to a half of the biomassof a sponge is actually internal
symbiotic bacterial cells. Andso a lot of times these bacteria
(18:53):
are actually producing thecompounds that we get out of the
sponges and such Oh, reallyinteresting. One that's out
there is something called pseudoterrorists, and it comes from a
gorgonian or like a sea fan thatoccurs in the Caribbean. It's
actually an anti inflammatoryagent, but it's actually being
used in Estee Lauder resilience.
So apparently, the compound ofinterest in that that I guess,
(19:18):
makes your face better orwhatever,
gave sort of an inflammationresponse. So people's faces
would kind of get read and stufflike this. So they actually
added some of this pseudoterrorist in in there to
actually knock down theinflammation response to
everything else that was in thein the compound. So that's being
(19:39):
used. So there's there's someinteresting leads out there is
interesting history of testingthese things through time. We're
still getting there. I'm notsure if I answered your earlier
question on how a drug actuallygets to market. But the reality
is, is you know, it's oftensomewhere in the neighborhood of
10 to 20 years of well, not justresearch but try to get through
(20:01):
the three phases of clinicaltrials, because classical
clinical trials, you know, youmight, you know, get 10,000
People with the drug, but thenyou're going to want to watch
him for four or five or sixyears to see what your long term
side effects are. And so drugdiscovery efforts can take quite
a while, I mean, that the parkthat I met in, which is in the
(20:22):
very beginning, where you grabsomething from the field, and
you start the process in thelab, that might be a year or
two, you know, sort of thelength of time of a typical
research grant, which is how Iget to the field. But at some
point, we're going to have topass it off to the sort of the
pharmaceutical industry, andthen then it really sort of
takes on and for every, usually1000 leads that you put into the
(20:46):
pipeline, you're lucky if youget one out. So it isn't, it is
a numbers game. And so then ifyou sort of look at the number
of years that, you know, we'vebeen doing drug discovery in the
ocean, and you, you sort of mapthat out, it sort of makes sense
that we're only at about five or10, you know, drug leads at this
point, but I guarantee you more,there's there's several in the
(21:08):
pipeline right now that aredoing pretty well, in phase one,
phase two. And, you know, Ipredict that probably in the
next, you know, three to fiveyears, we'll probably see a
doubling if not more, in termsof, of drugs from the city.
David Evans (21:24):
Well, that makes it a very exciting field to be in,
then you're at the forefront ofthis push and so excited to be
speaking with you about this.
Yeah. So I'm curious coralreefs, they seem to be as you
were saying, like just thesebiodiversity hotspots, are there
other marine or freshwaterhabitats that are really being
actively looked at? Or is itright now, the focus is
(21:44):
primarily on coral reefs,specifically because they have
such high diversity, or is thereother other habitats that are
really being targeted in aquaticenvironments?
Dr. Marc Slattery, Univer (21:56):
Yeah, no, that's a great point, I
think you're correct that coralreefs which are often considered
sort of the rainforest of theseas, high biodiversity, and
when you've got a lot of life inone area, you're obviously going
to see a greater opportunity to,to find new chemical sources.
But if you look at it, at leastthrough my eyes, as an
(22:19):
ecologist, that isn'tnecessarily where you're going
to find. So again, I'm lookingat it from the standpoint of the
animal is producing thesechemicals to do something for
it. And in some cases, it mightbe because there's a lot of
animals all sort of scrunchedtogether on a coral reef, there
might be a lot of competition,you might want to be producing
(22:40):
some chemistry there, there's,there's no doubt about that. But
there are other aspects, otherqualities of a habitat, that
might mean that you're going tohave to put extra energy into
the production of the chemistryso that you can survive there.
And so right now, one of theareas that I'm most passionate
about are what are known asMisa, photic reefs, and these
(23:02):
are the reefs, most coral reefecologist sort of get down to
about 100 feet maximum, becausethat's sort of the practical
depth of scuba diving. But thereef doesn't stop there. In
fact, the reef goes pretty deep.
And so I'm very interested thesedays in what's happening from
100 feet to 300 feet, whichthere's still very active reefs
down there, but they're belowsort of the depths of wealth,
(23:26):
where we see a lot of theanthropogenic disturbances. And
a lot of people look at thosereefs and say, those might be
sort of seed banks for futurereefs, right. And so there's
animals down there that aresurviving under conditions that
are less than optimal. And whenconditions are less than
optimal, then it often makessense to put some energy into
(23:46):
making sure that you're going tobe the most successful one and
the most successful one is theone that actually might produce
some interesting chemistry. Soso we're looking at these Musa
photic reefs, and I've actuallydone sort of a head to head
analysis of the species that Ifind there versus sometimes the
same species occurs on theshallower reef. In other cases,
it's just pure numbers, I findmore sponges down deeper and
(24:09):
bigger sponges. And even thoughthere's less fish down there
that might be feeding on them.
There is a lot more crampedtogether. So we actually see
higher levels of chemicaldefenses on the deep reefs than
we do in the shallow reefs,which is sort of interesting.
So. So I found a lot of activitythere. I actually got my start
(24:30):
doing research in Antarctica.
It's a very extreme environment.
Extreme environments seem to besort of a take home, the sponges
down there have a rich source ofchemistry as well. We've looked
back in caves, we found a lot ofinteresting chemistry back in
caves, and I guess in otherhabitats. So for instance, in
freshwater, one of the placesthey're finding a lot of
(24:50):
interesting things arehydrothermal vents, whether
that's in Yellowstone Park, theyhave a lot of hydrothermal vent
issues and so they find bacteriaAre there that are living at
these extremes? And doing very,very well. I know there's some
groups that are trying tocollect from the deep sea where
again, there is sort of anextreme environment. I think I
(25:10):
mentioned earlier disco dermallight that's actually comes from
a deep sea sponge, likesomething from several 1000
meters kind of thing. So it waspicked up by a submersible. So
yeah, I think we're justbreaking the surface. I think a
lot of the people who have beenfocused on coral reefs, I mean,
rightly so that, you know, thereis a lot of biodiversity there.
And so check it out. But it'salso nice to dive in warm water
(25:33):
with a lot of pretty fish. Andso that's kind of one of the
reasons why people still keeplooking there. And that gives me
and a few others an opportunityto check in places that are a
little less, less visited.
David Evans (25:47):
Nice, nice. My next question, Carl, Reese just
started these fascinatingconfluences of so many different
organisms all crammed together,as you were saying, and I always
hear that they're so valuable.
So in your eyes, are they sovaluable? Because they
potentially hold so muchpotential for drug discovery? Or
they have so much biodiversity,what in your eyes, makes a coral
(26:11):
reef valuable?
Dr. Marc Slattery, Universit (26:15):
So that's a great issue. And I've
I've had long discussions withother individuals, including my
own family who look at coralreefs, as you know, well, why
are we spending money to savethem when we've got people that
are homeless, you know, drugsfrom the seat, this is certainly
something that people can gettheir get their heads around, if
(26:36):
we find a new drug if we curecancer, or something that has
huge implications for society asa whole. And so I'm quite happy
to wave the flag for drugdiscovery, if it's going to help
save coral reefs for futuregenerations. I guess one of the
things I should point out,though, is since we are talking
about coral reefs, and sort oftheir importance, is the issue
(27:00):
of the sustainability of thesedrugs from the sea. So for
instance, when you're leaving acoral reef, one of the reasons
there's so much biodiversity,there's similar biomass to what
you have sort of in the kelpforests of California, where
there they only have, you know,a fraction of the number of
species. So you might have morespecies on coral reefs, but you
(27:21):
have fewer individuals. And soif one particular individual,
whether that's a sponge, or acoral or, or new to Brank, or
something is providing thatdrug, then you run into an issue
of supply. Okay, you can't justgo out and sort of rape and
pillage to get enough becausethere just isn't enough there.
(27:41):
In fact, to enter clinicaltrials, you're required to
produce one kilogram of thechemical that's going to be used
in the studies and kilogramwhile, that doesn't seem like a
lot, you know, what we'regetting out of these sponges
might be, you know, micrograms,or PICO grams. So you're talking
(28:03):
about from any given individual,you know, scaling that up,
you're talking about 1000s, ifnot 10s, of 1000s of individuals
to produce that amount ofchemistry. And so, so this has
become sort of the big challengeof how do you how do you make up
that difference? So one of thereasons why the chemists are
taking sort of their, their leadfrom the chemistry they find in
(28:27):
the oceans, and then sort ofdeveloping it along in the labs
by themselves, because they're,you know, you can do synthetic
chemistry and produce more ofit. It's awful and costly
process, but it can be done. Butthere are a couple of other
options that are available.
There's aquaculture, you couldpotentially if there was
something that was incrediblyimportant to have, you could
(28:47):
actually grow it and to seefarming, you know, they, they
farm a lot of terrestrial drugsand such from plants are being
farmed, and then taken into alab and extracted and used and
so there is aquaculture for fishthat we eat. And so one could
arguably do that approach forthese ones that are important
(29:08):
for drugs, and other is in themolecular biology era, we now
have the opportunity to go inand pull out the genes that are
responsible for the productionand particular chemistry. And
that's, I don't want this tocome off as like, well, that's
something we can just do. Imean, it's not not at the age of
Jurassic Park yet. Sort of rightknocking on the doors. And there
(29:33):
are challenges to pulling genesout putting them into a another
animal and telling it tooverproduce that particular
compound. But they're notinsurmountable. And so again, we
often archive the genome of anyindividual that we're working
with with the understanding thatwe can't necessarily do it
(29:54):
today. But maybe in the nextcouple of years, we're going to
be at the point where that isIt's more of a reality than it
was certainly when I started asa grad student in this business,
which back then it was all like,You got to get the chemistry
out. There's no, there's nooption for having the genes
produce it for you. So, so yeah,there are opportunities to to be
(30:15):
sustainable in this drugdiscovery effort as well.
David Evans (30:22):
That's a, that's a very interesting bringing
Jurassic Park into this, and howthat could help with the drugs
of the future. Coral reefs, theyjust seem to just be, yeah,
these amazing places, but makinga kilogram of a compound that
can be in just the most my newforms, it's a lot of work.
(30:43):
That's a, that's a, that's not asmall problem to to be a part
of. And I guess just roundingout the conversation about coral
reefs, what are some of the mainthreats to coral reefs from your
viewpoint?
Dr. Marc Slattery, Universi (30:54):
Oh, yeah. So you know, like
everything the biggest threat isman, I think there's still this
carryover thought of dilution isthe solution to pollution. And
so we've continued to use theoceans as our dumping grounds.
And we now recognize that thathas been a bad plan. The oceans
as a whole and coral reefs inparticular have been
(31:14):
tremendously impacted by stuffthat we put out on there. More
recently, climate change is atruly an existential threat. I
mean, we we talk about it interms of land, we see the
pictures of polar bears on theirmelting ice, or whatever. But in
the ocean itself. In coralreefs, there are tremendous
(31:35):
problems. One of them they talkabout is ocean acidification. As
we get more and more co2 pumpedinto the water, that changes the
acid base equilibrium, lowersthe pH to the point where it
becomes acidic. And many ofthese organisms are not able to
survive under those conditions.
Coral is one in particular thathas a calcium carbonate skeleton
(31:57):
and calcium carbonate. If you'veever put chalk into slightly
acid, you'll see that it justsort of dissolves away. And so
the reefs themselves, thestructure itself, can literally
just dissolve away. And thatdoesn't mean that the everything
out there is going to die. Butit certainly means there's
winners and losers and and reefsare changing. And as they
(32:19):
change, often for the worse, theorganisms that we want to be
around whether it's the ones I'minterested for, for drugs from
the sea, whether it's the, youknow, the fish that require that
structure that ultimately becomefood for various people, they're
just not able to make it underthese these changing conditions.
And so, so we certainly don'twant that. Another aspect of
(32:40):
climate change that's beenreally horrible of late is
thermal changes the risingtemperature, which leads to a
state known as coral bleaching,basically, you're you're heating
up the water, and the coralsthat rely on a delicate balance
with their photo symbionts getthrown out of balance or out of
whack, and all of a sudden, thecorals don't have that source of
(33:02):
energy anymore. And that meansthey're not able to produce
anything extra that's needed,like the chemistry that we've
been talking about, but theyalso can't produce enough energy
to survive themselves. So thatbecomes a problem. And sort of
the third area that people aremore aware of when we talk about
climate change is the increasingsevere storms, so massive
(33:23):
hurricanes, and that sort ofthing that go through and beat
up reefs. And you know, it takesdecades for these things to
recover. And so there again, ifsomething that was a large,
massive three dimensionalstructure that supporting that
biodiversity and stuff just getssort of beat down to, to rubble,
that isn't a reef that isn'tcertainly not the reefs that
(33:46):
we're used to. And so these,these are huge problems that we
have to overcome as a society,not just for the oceans, but for
humanity as a whole. Buthopefully, in doing that, we
will help our oceans whicharguably give us give us the
life on this planet.
David Evans (34:05):
Yeah, the increase in storms is brutal. But what
really took me it was the coralsnot having enough extra energy
to produce the chemistry thatthey need. I hadn't considered
that yet. That's, that's reallytroubling, especially if you
wanted to potentially, as you'resaying, Do aquaculture and be
able to produce these, you'dhave to watch out for storms and
(34:26):
sea temperature rise. And that'sinteresting. My last question
is, how can someone listening tothis podcast from a landlocked
area in North America helppreserve coral reefs?
Dr. Marc Slattery, Univer (34:40):
Yeah, so that brings up a great point,
and that is how can we dosomething to be better stewards
for the oceans? It often feelslike as an individual, we don't
have a lot of power andcertainly if you're landlocked
like I am today, you might noteven get to the oceans and be in
a position where you could forinstance, you know what? walk
along a beach and help withbeach cleanups or those sorts of
(35:03):
things. What else can you do?
Well, I would argue that one ofthe few powers we still have is
the power of the polls, we electofficials to do what we think
are important things for,whether it's our region or
society as a whole. And so callthose people to press just say,
Look, this is what I want. Theoceans are keeping this world
(35:24):
afloat. As it becomes harder forlife to live in the oceans, it's
going to become harder for thoseof us who are on land to live.
And so I really want you to goout there and support oceans,
whether it's increasing fundingpriorities to ocean research,
and ocean health, those arethings that you can push your
elected officials to do, I thinkit's really important these
(35:46):
sorts of outreach opportunities,talking to people who may not
know as much about these things.
Let them know why they shouldcare about the oceans, again,
you know, the potential fordrugs, a source of food, a
mechanism to prevent coastalerosion of the land that we're
used to, and arguably thecontrol of climate that has
(36:09):
implications not just for thecoral reefs in the ocean itself.
But as we've seen, these massivestorms are, whether they're
flooding coastal communities orleading to increase tornadoes in
the middle of the country. Soyeah, the point is, is that
things that we do to the oceanhave implications and the only
way we're going to do that is tohold our elected officials
(36:31):
accountable. And do that when itcomes time to elections. You
know, if there are people whoare not listening to you, as you
say, save the oceans then electsomebody who will do that give
support to outreach asfacilities, whether they're
local aquaria, or museum and getthat word out to the people. And
that I think is going to help asmuch as possible.
David Evans (36:53):
Well, thank you so much, Dr. Slattery for taking
the time to speak with us aboutthis. Absolutely fascinating
topic. I'm sorry for all thetechnical issues that we had to
go through. But thank you somuch for spending the time to
enrich our listeners ears withthis knowledge, and so excited
to see what comes next from thecoral reefs
Dr. Marc Slattery, Universi (37:12):
was great talking to you and your
listeners. Thanks, everyone.
David Evans (37:20):
Thank you so much to Dr. Mark Slattery for
speaking with me, and thepodcast about this incredible
topic. It's so incredible whenwe find new ways to value
things. And that's what I reallyam so thankful for with Mark
Slattery, because you showed usa way that we can value coral
reefs, and much more tangibleway that people can connect
with, rather than just as aplace to go or a place to
(37:44):
appreciate that, you know, it'sout there. So thank you for
that. I really appreciate youtaking the time, and sticking
with me who with our technicalissues that we had during the
recording of this, but it was itwas well worth it. And I really,
really think it's absolutelyfascinating. If you want to
learn more about coral reefrestoration, and recovery, and
just preservation andconservation in general, there's
(38:05):
so many different organizationsout there that are doing a
tremendous work in this field.
So I'll list a number of them inthe show notes. So be sure to
check that out. But definitelylook around where you are
locally, and see if there arethings that you can do locally,
that would help the larger goodas well. So be sure to check out
your local conservation groups.
And if there's an area thatyou're going to travel to spend
(38:26):
a vacation on, see if there'ssomething that you can do while
you're there as well to help outthose local conservation groups.
A little bit goes a long way.
I'm the host and producer DavidEvans. And I just like to thank
the rest of the team,specifically Paul apollomon, Lee
Burton, and the rest of theaquatic biosphere board. Thanks
for all of your help. And tolearn more about the aquatic
biosphere project and what we'redoing right here in Alberta
(38:48):
telling the story of water, youcan check us out at aquatic
biosphere.ca. And we also havelaunched our new media company,
a b n aquatic biosphere network,which you can find that the
public place dot online andsearch for the aquatic biosphere
network channel, where we willactually be posting all of the
video episodes that we're goingto be creating this year. So
(39:11):
tune in, they will be out forthe next little while, but very
excited to start sharing videocontent as well as our
interviews. Next week on thepodcast we're examining how
trans boundary water for youshare a river with another
country, how that can be usedfor conflict purposes, but also
how it can be used to createpeace in different regions of
the world. We're examiningArctic sovereignty, security and
(39:33):
diplomacy. We're looking at howwater as our borders or trans
Boundary Waters affect ournational interest and security.
globally. Tune in you won't wantto miss it. If you have any
questions or comments about theshow, we'd love to hear them.
Email us at conservation ataquatic biosphere.org. Please
don't forget to like, share andsubscribe. Leave us a review
(39:58):
really helps us out thanks andit's been a splash
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