Terra: Diving for science

Terra magazine coverTotal immersion: Researchers dive, sometimes into treacherous waters, in the search for disease-fighting compounds and solutions to crashing fisheries. Ensuring their safety is Kevin Buch’s job.

Check out the latest issue of Terra, OSU’s research magazine, for a fascinating article about marine scientists – including Sea Grant-funded Kerry McPhail – whose other “lab” is  in the deep, blue sea … and the veteran diver who trains them to stay safe in sometimes perilous waters.

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Cancer-killers from the sea?

Kerry McPhail is on the hunt for the most powerful products in nature.

Foraging the seas of Panama all the way to the Eastern Cape of South Africa, she brings marine organisms back to Oregon State University to unlock the compounds’ hidden power in the hopes of finding targets that shoot down cancer cells.

McPhail, an associate professor of medicinal chemistry in the School of Pharmacy, is trying, with funding  from NOAA via Oregon Sea Grant, to find compounds in natural products that can help fight cancer. …

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