University of South Florida 5R21AT012954-02

Natural Product Mining of Archived Corals

Award for research on natural product mining from archived corals, led by University of South Florida, utilizing advanced mass spectrometry and bioinformatics to discover new metabolites, funded by NCCIH.

Description

The project involves natural products chemistry of organisms from environments such as the deep sea, polar regions, and geopolitically sensitive areas. It aims to study marine invertebrate holdings of natural history museums, focusing on ethanol-preserved marine invertebrates from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. The project utilizes advanced analytical instrumentation including Orbitrap and QToF mass spectrometers, coupled with nanoflow liquid chromatography, to identify new metabolites and characterize new chemotypes from coral species. Funding is provided by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), under award number PA-20-195. The project is part of a broader effort to address the decline in natural product discovery and re-isolation of known chemotypes. The project is led by Dr. Bill J. Baker, a Distinguished University Professor, and involves collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. It emphasizes the use of bioinformatics platforms such as MZmine and SIRIUS, as well as targeted NMR sequences like PSYCHE-TOCSY and DREAMTIME. The project spans from 2025 to 2027, focusing on discovering novel natural products from archived coral samples.

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