Oxidative stress is expected to be the underlying cause of an increasing number of diseases as the world's demographic patterns shift and its population ages. This will particularly be the case in developed countries, such as Japan and Europe, with the most pronounced ageing trends. 

These trends are expected to lead to an epidemic progression of chronic diseases, especially cardiovascular, neurodegenerative and metabolic disorders as well as age-associated degenerative diseases, often attributed to an increase in oxidative stress. The oxidative agents acting in many of these diseases can cause direct tissue damage as well as disabling the endogenous self-repair mechanisms in DNA, cells and tissues. 

Prevention of the primary or secondary tissue damage caused by oxidative stress is therefore anticipated to become an increasing therapeutic need and there will be major opportunities for new, cost-effective drugs that can prevent or even reverse the tissue-damage caused by oxidative stress. 

Aquapharm

Aquapharm has observed empirically that many of its marine micro-organisms are prolific producers of a wide-range anti-oxidant compounds. These are believed to be part of a sophisticated defence mechanism evolved to fend off biological and environmental attack.  

Aquapharm has used its knowledge of marine microbe culturing and induction to access the full range of such chemistry to exploit the rich evolutionary legacy of the oceans. 

A novel approach

Antioxidant defences produced within cells (e.g. glutathione, glutathione peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, catalase) and supplemented by specific compounds taken in through the diet (e.g. vitamin C, vitamin E, flavonoids) can block the damaging effects of oxidative stress caused by DNA damage, lipid and protein oxidation. 

Although it's widely accepted that the mode of action of some diet-derived antioxidants is through direct quenching of free radicals (e.g. highly bioavailable vitamins) this cannot be the case for those antioxidants that have poor bioavailability (e.g. flavonoids) when orally ingested; a characteristic often missed by manyin vitrostudies such as ORAC. 

Aquapharm is therefore focussed on discovering small molecules which switch on and amplify cells' endogenous anti-oxidant defence mechanisms, in particular, modulators of the anti-oxidant response element (ARE) cascade targetting the nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-like 2 protein ( Nrf2). This opens up the possibility of developing therapeutics with a wide range of cyto-protective effects relevant to many chronic and degenerative diseases including metabolic, cardiovascular and CNS.