The ocean as a medicine cabinet: Researchers search for useful microbes

The ocean as a medicine cabinet: Researchers search for useful microbes

New medicines, crop protection products and treatments for fish diseases could have their origins on the seabed. That is where project coordinator Gilles van Wezel and project manager Mariana Avalos Garcia, both biologists in Leiden, together with their colleagues, searched for microorganisms that produce useful compounds. Their search took them to sponges, algae, fish and salt-tolerant plants.