In the early 1990s a research group at Kirin Pharmaceuticals reported their results from screening lipophilic extracts from the Okinawan sponge Agelas mauritianus. When their extracts were tested in mice, but not in cell culture, they observed potent antitumor activity by glycolipids that they named the agelasphins (1).[1] Structure–activity studies of compounds available through synthesis revealed that a slightly simpler analogue of the natural ...
