ABSTRACT
Microbes have been long considered as producers of secondary metabolites with pharmaceutical applications. Avenues are now opening in the less explored potential of microorganisms in the eld of probiotics and biomedical sciences including tissue engineering. However, most of the microbial species studies employed for such biomedical studies are terrestrial strains. Little attention is given to the microbial ora and fauna of the oceanic environments despite the fact that oceans have been a rich source of natural antioxidants, photoprotective (Pallela et al. 2010), anti-inammatory (Himaya et al. 2010), anticancer (Bhatnagar and Kim 2010a), and antimicrobial or general pharmaceutical agents with varied actions (Bhatnagar and Kim 2010b).
