Marine micro-organisms are a prolific, rich and diverse source of novel biochemistry.

Billions of years of competition for resources and reproductive advantages have endowed marine micro-organisms with the ability to impose selection pressure on their neighbours and to resist the corresponding counter-pressures via the production of a wide-range of natural chemicals.

In addition, their adaptations to extremes of, and often rapid fluctuations in, environmental pressures such as pH, salt, temperature and pressure have provided marine microbes with the ability to produce novel molecules, including secondary metabolites, not found in terrestrial micro-organisms.

Many of these molecules exhibit functional activity that could have beneficial impact on human health and wellbeing including anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and/or anti-microbial activity.  

Whilst many of today's pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals have their origins in terrestrial micro-organisms, their marine counter-parts have the potential to generate the next generation of products.