Potent cancer fighter lies in Keys algae beds

By Cammy Clark (article)

Researchers working to conquer one of the nation's deadliest cancers think they may have found a silver bullet in what might seem a most unlikely place: the blue-green algae beds of Pickles Reef, off the coast of Key Largo.

Meanwhile, an Islamorada inhabitant, the bright orange, two-inch-long cone snail, could become a best buddy to smokers trying to quit. The snail's venom, a paralyzing potion, contains a compound that appears to short-circuit nicotine's addictive spell.

Who knew that plants and animals indigenous to the Florida Keys are such a promising contributor to the nation's medicine cabinet?

Actually, to researchers in the field, many of them in Florida labs, it all makes perfect sense.

``People really are recognizing the potential of the ocean,'' said Valerie Paul, head scientist at the Smithsonian Marine Station in Fort Pierce.

Ancient civilizations learned thousands of years ago how to use plants and other land-based organisms for curative purposes. Today's medicinal arsenal includes aspirin from the bark of a willow tree, antibiotics from bacteria, morphine and codeine from opium poppies and penicillin from mold.

But the seas, although they cover 80 percent of the planet, have been a relatively untapped source of compounds to create new drugs.

So far, only two marine-based drugs have been approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration: Prialt and Yondelis.

Prialt, a non-narcotic pain-killer derived from the venom of another species of cone snails, is used to treat severe chronic pain in people who cannot use or do not respond to standard pain-relieving medications. It works by blocking pain signals from the nerves to the brain.

Yondelis, made from compounds extracted from orange sea squirts, which look like a bouquet of tiny balloons and grow on the roots of mangroves in the Florida Keys, is used to treat advanced soft tissue sarcoma (a form of cancer) in Europe, Russia and South Korea.

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