The Potency of Indonesian Marine Bioprospecting

Indonesia is often referred to as the world\'s largest archipelago, a name which aptly represents its 17,508 or so islands which span more than 5000 km (around 3,977 miles) eastward from Sabang in northern Sumatra to Merauke in Irian Jaya. Fortunately 70 persen of this territory is ocean area. Located between two distinct bio-geographic groups - Asia and Australia – the marine flora and fauna is also quite idiosyncratic. The eastern ocean area of Indonesia is known as “the coral triangle” with the highest reef biodiversity in the earth. Diversity of Indonesian marine life reported to consist of 782 species of macro algae, 1060 species of coral, 850 species of sponges, 2500 species of mollusk, 1512 species of crustaceae, 745 species of echinoderms and 2140 species of fish. Regarding this potential, RCO-LIPI through marine natural products laboratory was responsible for conducting research on marine bioprospecting. Laboratory of Marine Natural Products since established in 1993 until now has been conducting various studies including functional food from marine macro algae (study on marine poli & oligosaccharide), sea cucumber and fish, agrochemicals from macro algae and biologically active compounds derived from soft coral and sponges. Approximately 50 active substances were isolated from Indonesian sponges, most of them were anticancer. Recently we started to investigate bioactive compounds derived from sponges-associate microorganisms especially for antibiotics production. For future research, we are planning to explore Indonesian invertebrate and associate-microorganisms for pharmacological purposes. Proceedings of International Symposium on Marine Bioprospecting, 24 May 2012 Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute.