Bioactive Interfaces II

Fouling represent a major challenge leading to increased costs for the marine and offshore industry. Toxic compounds are today employed to prevent ongrowth on marine surfaces. The development of "green" antifouling compounds from marine organisms has thus a huge potential as several marine organisms produce antifouling compounds in order to survive. Preliminary studies on isolated moderately active antimicrobial and cytotoxic marine compounds have already revealed powerful antibacterial properties again st bacteria and microalgae involved in antifouling biofilms. The isolated compounds will serve as models and their molecular scaffolds will, after promising screening results, be synthetically modified to establish the essential structure activity relatio nship. This will allow for generation of simpler compounds that can be rapidly prepared at a low cost for large scale applications which is the only viable options given the naturally low concentrations of most marine secondary metabolites. The road to commercialisation of antifouling agents is of significantly less resistance in comparison to that of pharmaceuticals. The commercial value of a new "green" nontoxic antifouling compound is ~1 billion USD. Medical applications such as fouling resistant coa tings leading to reduced hospitalisation and patient suffering is also a conceivable area where the compounds will find use. The project is in accordance with the strategies and goals of BIOTEK2021. It is a project based on marine bioprospecting and mari ne biotechnology. It involves the refinement and further development of compounds generated by MabCent. The antifouling bioactivities to be investigated are not currently screened at MabCent and the project can thus be regarded as a complement to MabCent. Several commercial partners have expressed interest in the project and they will take active roles in the later stages of the project once the initial promising bioactivities have been validated.