What significant hurdle often impedes translating promising lab results from marine resources into viable treatments?
Answer
Difficulty of harvesting and cultivating organisms that grow slowly in controlled manners
A major impediment in progressing from promising laboratory findings—like an isolated compound showing efficacy against cancer—to actual viable pharmaceutical treatments is the logistical challenge associated with the source organisms themselves. Many corals are characterized by extremely slow growth rates. This slow pace makes controlled cultivation or systematic harvesting for the necessary large quantities of raw material incredibly difficult. If the source reservoir is rare or geographically restricted, developing a drug based on wild collection becomes infeasible, creating a critical bottleneck in the translation phase of drug development.
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