Session Speaker

Pulmonary Drugs from the Sea
Steven A. Fontana


NIH has often spoken about the value of translational medicine in its "From Bench to Bedside" model of taking discovery to the clinic. For ocean work, the operational paradigm might more aptly be "From Beach to Bedside". Since 2000, an interdisciplinary team of scientists assembled nation-wide from 6 research organizations, the Florida Dept of Health, and the CDC has expanded knowledge in the area of red tide toxin inhalation. The 10 year study is funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and is directed from the University of North Carolina Wilmington by Professor Daniel G. Baden. The research revealed the presence of a natural antidote molecule called Brevenal in red tide organisms. Parallel to that discovery, other scientists in the group made chemical derivatives of active red tide toxins, and turned them into antitoxins called B-Nap. The ARRA supplement received will accelerate and expand on two specific Roadmap Areas identified by NIH. To advance the "Translational Medicine" aspects of the two drugs, well-designed inhalation pre-clinical studies carried out by Mount Sinai Medical Center and Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute will address the toxicology necessary to take discovery up to clinical phase I human trials. The work also expands on "Comparative Effectiveness Research". The two therapeutic molecules act by different molecular mechanisms on distinct therapeutic targets, while their effectiveness in whole organisms is functionally the same. Each drug counteracts the signs and symptoms of cystic fibrosis, asthma, and other mucociliary diseases by thinning mucous and accelerating its transport out of lung. The brevenal receptor, in addition, is a previously uncharacterized drug locus in lung.