MICROBIAL ENGINEERING OF NEW STREPTOMYCES SP. FROM EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS FOR NOVEL ANTIBIOTICS AND ANTICANCER DRUGS

摘要

Today there is a tremendous need for new antibiotics and novel cytotoxic compounds against cancer cells to develop efficient alternative treatment to chemotherapy. We have searched for highly active Streptomyces strains in the driest desert in the world, the Atacama desert in northern Chile. We have identified several new strains and found many novel antibiotics and anticancer agents ("Chaxamycins", "Chaxalactins" and "Atacamycins") from Streptomyces C34 and C38.