Corals may help to protect us from the sun in the near future – and you could even be taking a tablet instead of slapping on the suncream!
"If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it." Sage advice indeed from poet Mary Schmich.
Now, researchers at King’s College London have discovered how coral naturally produces sunscreen, and they believe that the compounds involved could eventually be recreated synthetically and used in a sunscreen for human use, possibly in a tablet form instead of a lotion.
Dr Paul Long, project leader says, "What we have found is that the algae living within the coral makes a compound that we think is transported to the coral, which then modifies it into a sunscreen for the benefit of both the coral and the algae. Not only does this protect them both from UV damage, but we have seen that fish that feed on the coral also benefit from this sunscreen protection, so it is clearly passed up the food chain."
"This led us to believe that if we can determine how this compound is created and passed on, we could biosynthetically develop it in the laboratory to create a sunscreen for human use, perhaps in the form of a tablet, which would work in a similar way."
"We are very close to being able to reproduce this compound in the lab, and if all goes well we would expect to test it within the next two years."
Protection for humans is not the sole purpose of the research; the team has a long-term goal of developing sun protection to permit the use of high yield crops in third-world countries.
"The part algae play in protecting itself and coral against UV is thought to be a biochemical pathway called the shikimate pathway, found only in microbes and plants. If we could take the part of the pathway that the coral generates, and put this into plants, we could potentially also utilise their shikimate pathway to make these natural sunscreens," said Dr Long.
The team is also attempting to discover how climate change causes coral bleaching, and it is thought that this study will contribute vital knowledge for the management and conservation of reef biodiversity in regards to global warming.
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