Re-Found Sponge Could Help Cure Cancer

Nov. 10 -- For nearly 20 years, divers searched in deep and shallow water. They scoured wide ocean swaths. But their prize — a gray, rocklike sponge — remained elusive. Until now.

In October a team from Harbor Branch Biomedical Marine Research, based in Fort Pierce, Fla., finally zeroed in on the sponge's hideout while on a research cruise in the Bahamas.

"We were really excited," recalled Amy Wright, director of the group. "I was just dancing around."

By carefully plotting out every feature of landscapes where bits of the sponge had been found before, Wright and her colleagues came up with a likely hideout. Sure enough, they found healthy populations of the sponge at a depth of 1,000 feet in an area known as the Dead Zone.

Why so much to-do about a little sponge? Researchers believe the yet-unnamed species holds medical potential and could, quite literally, save lives.

Endless Finds, Easy to Lose

When bits of the sponge were first found in 1984, preliminary tests showed a chemical within it was about 400 times more potent than the drug currently used to treat breast cancer, Taxol. The initial tests were so promising that lab workers went ahead to see if the chemical would work to kill cancer cells injected into mice.

Those results were also promising. Then they ran out of sponge.

Running out of supplies of a potential marine medicine is a common problem for those searching for cures in the ocean.

Since the ocean covers 70 percent of the Earth's surface and remains largely unexplored, scientists believe it may hold many more cures. Right now about 16 compounds derived from marine species are in clinical trials. Most of these drugs are for treating different forms of cancer since cancer foundations have funded ocean exploration for biomedical research.

But the vastness of the ocean is also its drawback — since species can quickly be lost in its waters. That's why Wright devised a hunt for the gray sponge.

"I got a pattern for a depth range and for the kinds of terrain when we found it before," she said.