Oceans Might Hold Answers to Beating Addiction, Pain, Duquesne Professor Says

PITTSBURGH, OCT. 31, 2012 — /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Westerners have combed rainforests for pharmaceutical compounds, but in landlocked Pittsburgh, the ocean is not often discussed as a possible pharmacopeia. Still, from his inland academic base, Dr. Kevin Tidgewell, assistant professor of medicinal chemistry at Duquesne University, scours the ocean for natural products.

Tidgewell arrived this fall direct from Panama, where he spent the last two years searching the seas for products to help those who suffer from complex diseases such as neurological disorders, cancers and parasitic infections. He focuses on cyanobacteria, one-celled organisms that gather in colonies that look like limp seaweed when scooped up.

Tidgewell studies their possible pharmaceutical abilities to ease neurological diseases, addiction, pain and cancer, incorporating many scientific disciplines to examine the structures and activities of the body’s receptors responsible for the uptake of opiates and other drugs. Read More…