This Small Business Innovation Research Phase-l project seeks to establish a program to demonstrate the feasibility of in vitro seaweed cell/tissue culture technology as a viable and effective means of producing research and development quantities of the high-value anticancer natural product halomon. Halomon is a powerful cytotoxic natural product compound exhibiting a unique specificity for, and high activity against certain highly chemoresistant human tumor cell lines. The compound is not amenable to artificial synthesis in adequate quantities to support drug development. Furthermore, the only known source is a limited population of the marine alga Portieria hornemannii from a remote island in the Philippines. Preclinical development of the compound is currently hampered by lack of raw material. This proposal details a program for developing an alternative to wild collections by bringing the alga into cell/tissue culture. The methods to be used are based on techniques and technologies for in vitro culture of marine macrophytes and terrestrial plants, as well as plant biotechnology. Phase l will develop the basic culture protocols for in vitro maintenance of P. hornemannii, as well as test physiological induction mechanisms for stimulating secondary metabolite production. In addition, we seek to perform preliminary experiments on two-phase culture which will significantly guide the planning of an optimized bioreactor production system to be designed and built in Phase ll.
