A Marine Biodiscovery Laboratory in Ireland

The Marine Biodiscovery group at NUIG has been awarded a grant from the Marine Institute to develop a national Biomaterial Repository respecting best practices.

The project started on the 1st July 2020 and will finish on the 31st October 2021.

Dr Maggie REDDY has been recruited as a post-doctoral researcher to identify all the marine invertebrates collected using morphological and molecular data. 

Daniel RODRIGUES has been recruited as a research assistant for the collection of the species, the organization of the database, and the field identification of the organisms. 

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Using both multi-informative molecular network and score-based approaches as prioritization strategies, the Northeastern Atlantic marine terebellid Eupolymnia nebulosa was selected for in-depth chemical investigation. A family of 16 new metabolites named nebulosins was isolated and structurally characterized from extensive analyses of HRMS/MS and NMR spectroscopic data. Nebulosins feature an unprecedented highly substituted thiolane ring leading to up to four contiguous chiral centers. The relative configurations were assigned through a combination of NOESY analysis, spin–spin coupling constant analysis, and NMR chemical shifts measurements, while the absolute configurations were determined by comparison between experimental and theoretical ECD spectra. This family of natural product exhibits promising antioxidant activities in both ORAC and ROS assays.


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