Under the Naturalis Spotlight: How can a sponge heal us?
During the Spotlight sessions of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, their experts share the latest knowledge, they demonstrate museum collection pieces and talk passionately about their work within the museum.
MARBLES researcher Niels van der Windt Spotlight session was entitled -How can a sponge heal us? He explained that it all started with biodiversity. So far, 9000 sponge species have been identified. The sponges are extremely diverse and produce a lot of chemical compounds that can be used by us humans as medicines. Examples include the anti-viral drug acyclovir (for treatment of herpes virus infections) and the anti-cancer drug cytarabine (for treatment of leukemia) both of which were discovered in sea sponges. The sponges make these chemical compounds in symbiosis with microbes such as bacteria. In Niels' PhD research within the MARBLES project, he is looking at which sponges they can find with the highest biodiversity of microbes and chemical compounds, in order to be able to search more specifically in the future.