URI_Research_Magazine_2010-2011_Melissa-McCarthy

multi- and interdisciplinary research

It’s a Big Ocean ...Fish...Coral...Seaweed...Antibiotics

David Rowley, second from the left, and students Robert Deering, left, Stephanie Forschner-Dancause, and Christine Dao, right

As the use of antibiotics to treat infectious disease has become more commonplace in recent decades, scientists, doctors and others in the medical professions have noticed a disturbing development: Some bacteria have evolved to outwit antibiotics, making it necessary to search for newer and more effective drugs to fight disease. David Rowley is involved in that search. This new area of multi- and interdisciplinary research is called “Marine Pharmacology.” An associate professor of biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Rhode Island (URI), Rowley studies the molecules found in marine microorganisms to see if they have potential to become healing agents in mankind’s fight against infectious disease. Medicinal chemistry, to use a layman’s phrase. “I’m interested in molecules that affect microorganisms in one way or another,” said Rowley, whose research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Rhode Island Sea Grant. What roles do molecules play in the natural environment? Can these same molecules be harnessed pharmacologically to help battle infections and other diseases? These are the questions Rowley concerns himself with in his laboratory at URI’s College of Pharmacy.

The development of antibiotics and other disease-fighting drugs from bacteria found in soil and other “terrestrial” sources has been one of the great success stories in all of medicine, Rowley noted. An example is the cancer-fighting drug Taxol, whose medicinal properties originate in the common yew tree. But now that some of these antibiotics have started to fail, it’s time to look to new sources for the world’s drugs. To the question of where researchers can find these sources, Rowley has a ready answer. “We can investigate marine microbes,” he said. Which is why his multidisciplinary research leads him to collaborate with URI oceanographers. To date, Rowley has already discovered new molecules in the marine microbes he studies, an exciting accomplishment for any scientist. As he noted, “That’s what keeps us going.” But finding new molecules is only part of the challenge. Getting marine- based medicines to market – or from ocean to bedside, as Rowley puts it – is a long process with several stages. First, there’s extracting the potentially useful molecule, then there’s cultivating it in sufficient quantities for pharmaceutical use. Finally, clinical trials are required before a new drug can be sold.

The University of Rhode Island 22