Spotlight Session: How can a marine sponge cure us?
MARBLES partner Naturalis Biodiversity Center holds Spotlight Sessions so their experts can share the latest knowledge, demonstrate museum collection pieces, and talk passionately about their work within the museum. Spotlights are interactive events where a scientist is interviewed in front of the museum audience of 150-300 people in three slots that day.
Here MARBLES researcher Niels van der Windt explains how marine sponges can be used to cure us! He shows some of his work as part of the MARBLES project, specifically focused on microbes in marine sponges and the natural products they can produce that have the potential to be used in pharmaceuticals.
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. For example, did you know the anti-viral drug acyclovir (for treatment of herpes virus infections) and the anti-cancer drug cytarabine (for treatment of leukemia) were both discovered from sea sponges?! The sponges make these chemical compounds in symbiosis with microbes like 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 for compounds to use for future medicines.
Learn more about Naturalis Spotlight sessions and watch a selection of past talks