Biopiracy of marine organisms: an emerging paradigm

The modern drugs commercially available nowadays are widely isolated from natural reservoirs. Penicillin was isolated from a mold and Aspirin was isolated from a willow tree. The recent advanced scientific research has further extended the explorations for medicinal drugs in the marine reservoirs. Some of the drugs based on marine organisms have proved to be quite effective in treating diseases like cancer and Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The different marine organisms like sponges, molluscs, echinoderms, tunicates and bryozoans are being actively used or trialled for the preparation of useful pharmaceutical drugs. The scientists, researchers and pharmaceutical corporations of the world compete to discover new drugs from global marine reservoirs. The marine organisms are freely available in the marine ecosystems and lack of global legislations provide free hands to the biopirates to exploit the marine reservoirs and isolate different organisms from it. The enormous explorations in the marine reservoirs by the biopirates are causing damage to its ecosystems and its lifeforms. In this investigation, it was concluded that though scientific explorations should be allowed in the marine reservoirs for producing lifesaving drugs but overexploitation of marine reservoirs should be prohibited. It is suggested through this investigation that proper tracking of marine reservoirs is the present requirement to face the challenges being laid down by the biopirates. published by the Journal of Biodiversity and Environmental Sciences | JBES