AMY E. WRIGHT, Ph.D.

wright@hboi.edu

(University of California, 1984 - Marine Natural Products Chemistry)

Division Director
Division of Biomedical Marine Research (DBMR)
Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution

My current research program focuses on the discovery of novel marine natural products with potential use as human therapeutic agents or as lead structures for rationale drug design. Compounds are obtained from marine plants, invertebrates and microorganisms associated with marine invertebrates using bioassay guided purification. The structures of new compounds are determined through spectroscopic means with an emphasis on the use of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. A new collaborative research project in my group focuses on the production of un-natural natural products through the manipulation of biosynthetic genes. Ancillary interests include evaluation of the ecological role of marine natural products; applications of natural products chemistry to systematics of the Porifera and deep water Gorgonacea; study of the role of microbial associates in the production of therapeutically interesting natural products; and development of micro-analytical methods for monitoring aqua and cell cultures used in the production of therapeutically important marine natural products.

Listen to Dr. Wright's lecture at the 2001 Ocean Science Lecture Series (requires Flash 4).

Selected Publications:

A. E. Wright, Isolation of Marine Natural Products, in Methods in Biotechnology, Vol 4. Natural Products Isolation (R.J. P.Cannell, ed), Humana Press Inc. (Totowa, NJ), 1998 365-408.

Shirley A. Pomponi, Robin Willoughby, Amy E. Wright, Claudia Pecorella, Susan H. Sennett, Jose Lopez and Gail Samples, In Vitro Production of Marine-Derived Antitumor Compounds, New Developments in Marine Biotechnology, edited by Le Gal and Halvorson, Plenum Press, New York, 1998, pp 73-76.

Rebecca L. Wood, Tamar K. Miller, Amy Wright, Peter McCarthy, Cathy S. Taft, Shirley Pomponi, and Claude P. Seletrenikoff, Characterization and Optimization of In Vitro Assay Conditions for (1,3)b-Glucan synthase Activity from Aspergillus fumigatis and Candida albicans for Enzyme Inhibition Screening, J. Antibiotics, 1998, 51, 665-675.

Sarath P. Gunasekera, Peter J. McCarthy, Ross E. Longley, Shirley A. Pomponi, and Amy E. Wright, Secobatzellines A and B, Two New Enzyme Inhibitors from a Deep Water Caribbean Sponge of the Genus Batzella, J. Nat. Prod. 1999, 62, 1208-1211.