Scientists at FAU’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute (HBOI) have designed and built a new “tool sled,” which is attached to a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that allows them to pick up items from the ocean floor. This apparatus provides HBOI scientists with the opportunity to continue their decades-long search for sea sponges that produce chemicals that have the potential to combat an array of diseases including Alzheimer’s disease and several types of cancers.

 

“The value of collecting samples of marine life from the seafloor with this ROV can’t be overstated,” said Shirley Pomponi, Ph.D., FAU research professor and executive director of the Cooperative Institute for Ocean Exploration, Research and Technology (CIOERT), which is headquartered at HBOI and funded by the NOAA Ocean Exploration and Research program. “The primary goal of our marine biomedical and biotechnology program is to discover marine natural products with utility as medicines or as tools to better allow us to understand disease processes.”

 

“Although sponges are an ancient group of animals that appeared more than 600 million years ago, many of the genes they have are the same as those involved in cancer,” said Pomponi. “We can take advantage of this similarity in human and sponge genomes to develop medicines useful in the treatment of human diseases.”