Dear Colleagues,

The oceans encompass about 70% of the surface of our planet, and they represent the greatest extremes of temperatures, light, and pressure encountered by life, thus providing diverse environmental niches. The marine environment is mainly underexplored and untapped compared to the terrestrial environment, which makes it attractive and challenging. Hence, research efforts to discover bioactive secondary metabolites have expanded from land to the oceans. A myriad of novel secondary metabolites with unique scaffolds have been reported in recent years, many of which have revealed great potential for pharmaceutical, cosmeceutical, nutraceutical, and biotechnological applications. Although marine invertebrates—mainly sponges, soft corals, and ascidians—initially dominated these studies, partly because they are easily accessible to collectors by snorkeling or scuba diving, recently many researchers have focused on marine microorganisms as interesting sources of secondary metabolites with a wide array of biological/pharmacological activities and biotechnological potential.

Southeast Asia is the largest archipelago region, consisting of more than 25,000 islands and thousands of kilometers of coastline, and is recognized as a global marine biodiversity hotspot. Its extraordinary biodiversity makes this region a promising source of new bioactive compounds for pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, cosmeceutical, and biotechnological development.

The Special Issue "Pharmaceutical, Nutraceutical, Cosmeceutical, and Biotechnological Applications of Marine Resources in Southeast Asia" welcomes submissions of previously unpublished manuscripts from original work on isolation, structure elucidation, and biological activity evaluation, in vitro and in vivo pharmacological study of marine-derived compounds, marine natural products with insecticidal or herbicidal activities, and synthesis and medicinal chemistry of marine natural products from marine macro- or microorganisms collected from Southeast Asian waters.

Please note that reports of known compounds from new sources will not generally be accepted unless they have relevant biological and pharmacological activities. Moreover, extracts of marine macro- or microorganisms used in vitro and/or in vivo pharmacological study must be characterized by analysis of their major constituents (e.g. HPLC fingerprints, HPLC-MS, GC-MS, or NMR analyses). The editorial team of this Special Issue plans to receive full paper submissions from 1^st February 2022 to 30^th June 2022. 

Prof. Dr. Anake Kijjoa
Dr. Masteria Yunovilsa Putra
Dr. Tida Dethoup
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Marine Drugs is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.