The focus of the research is on the marine natural product chemistry of coral reefs. One highlight of the research will be to understand the relationship between green algal hosts and sacoglossan mollusks that leads to the production of cyclic depsipeptides. Another project will attempt to discover the biosynthetic pathways in a verongid sponge that leads to terpenes and cyano compounds. Also, new compounds will be sought from tunicates and bryozoa that are abundant in Hawaiian waters but have received little study. %%% With this award, the Synthetic Organic Program is supporting the research of Dr. Paul J. Scheuer of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Professor Scheuer will focus his work on elucidating coral reef phenomena at the molecular level by discovering new natural products from organisms or groups of organisms which reside in Hawaiian waters.
