OCEAN LECTURE SERIES

"Eastside, Westside, Deep in the Ocean: Exploring the Straits of Florida for New Medicines"
• Amy Wright, Ph.D.

About the Lecture

Just as plants and microorganisms collected on land have yielded important medicines (aspirin, Taxol, Mevacor), marine invertebrates and microorganisms also provide a wealth of potential medicines. In recent years, the marine natural products drug discovery program at Harbor Branch has been exploring deep-water habitats in the Straits of Florida for marine organisms that might provide new treatments for diseases such as cancer.

This talk will provide an update on the drug discovery program at HBOI and highlight a recent expedition, conducted in 2006, that explored a series of deep-water coral reefs which were only recently discovered by colleagues at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences in late 2005. The talk will highlight the technology used to discover the reefs, what we found on the reefs, and the biomedical research currently being conducted with specimens collected in the Straits.

About the Speaker

Amy Wright received her B.S. in Chemistry from California State University Dominguez Hills and her M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Organic Chemistry from the University of California at Riverside. After a brief period as a Postdoctoral Fellow with SeaPharm, a Biotechnology Company located at Harbor Branch, she joined the staff of SeaPharm as a Senior Scientist. In 1987, she became an employee at HBOI.

Amy's research focuses on the discovery of marine natural products that may be useful in the treatment of cancer and other dread diseases. In her work at HBOI she has had the opportunity to use the Johnson-Sea-Link submersible to be the first (along with the submersible crew) to explore untouched deep-water habitats around the Atlantic and Caribbean and collect organisms that may hold the key to treating disease. She has participated in over forty research expeditions and has made hundreds of dives in the Johnson-Sea-Link submersibles in search of novel natural products.