Extreme biology

The study of microorganisms is an area of research that is providing excellent results in the identification of new chemical entities with potent pharmacological application with the advantage of being a sustainable, renewable and manipulable source.

Our research focuses on discovering and developing new bioactive substances of interest to the pharmaceutical industry, taking the biodiversity of the marine microbiota of the Canary Islands as a starting point. To this end, bacterial strains of interest will be identified for the development of compounds with high added value, compounds likely to become potential therapeutic agents or biological tools for discovering new ways of action.

The research includes the generation of a collection of marine bacterial strains resulting from an extreme habitat such as the beaches newly formed by the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma and the obtaining of molecular diversity through different strategies to stimulate the activation of silenced metabolic pathways of the selected strains.