Chemical In Red Tide Blooms May Help Cystic Fibrosis Patients

[hatrack]

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(Ed. - Biochemist Dan) "Baden for years has studied toxins produced during big algae blooms known as red tides. The blooms can kill fish and dolphins, poison shellfish and make people sick who breathe in their fumes. In 2000, Baden started a sizable collaboration with physicians and other scientists to nail down the red tide toxins that truly threaten people. As part of that project, Andrea Bourdelais, a chemist in the UNCW lab, started cataloging lesser-known toxins in the outbreaks.

While looking, she observed a compound that seemed to slow down one toxin. She isolated the chemical, identified its structure and discovered that it acts as an antidote to the algae's own poison.

Baden's team sent samples to collaborators at Mount Sinai Medical Center at the University of Miami. A physiologist there tested it on sheep, which were forced to breathe a red tide toxin to see whether it protected them from harm.

It did that and more. The Florida scientist, William M. Abraham, also observed that the antidote somehow stimulated the movement of mucus off the lungs of sheep. That could be useful for doctors trying to keep the lungs of people with cystic fibrosis clear of damaging infections. Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disease that afflicts about 30,000 children and adults in the United States. It creates thick mucus that clogs lungs and leads to lethal lung infections. People with cystic fibrosis often don't live past their 30s."

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http://newsobserver.com/news/story/1994272p-8380279c.html

[Mr.Green93]

1. Amazing

Thanks for the post.

[NNadir]

2. Dr. Bourdelais has published on this topic in J. Nat. Prod.

A New Polyether Ladder Compound Produced by the Dinoflagellate Karenia brevis
Bourdelais, A. J.; Jacocks, H. M.; Wright, J. L. C.; Bigwarfe, P. M., Jr.; Baden, D. G.;
J. Nat. Prod.; (Article); 2004;

I don't have internet access to the article so I can't discuss the compound.