ABSTRACT
Nature-derived therapeutics are currently attracting more attention than chemical synthesis and synthetic ones. Today the expansion of the natural bioactive molecule market is starting to dominate, and it seems that generic drug and therapeutic understanding will give way to new products. Thus, controlled production conditions for naturally originating therapeutics are of importance. The public is also paying more attention to natural molecules and the demand ofor bioactive molecules is also increasing dramatically. Bioactive molecules from microalgae show antioxidant, ant ibacterial, antiviral, anticancer, skin regenerative, sunscreen, antihypertensive, neuroprotective and immunostimulatory effects which are favorable for the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and cosmetics industries. Microalgal bioactive metabolites are emerging in the market for pharmaceutical, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, food and feed purposes. With recent developments, new products have come on to the market as a combinatory result of molecular biology and bioprocesses. Since we have started to understand more about algal physiology, gene regulation and metabolic networks, it has been slightly easier to increase the productivity of certain products such as fatty acids, pigments, proteins and recombinant therapeutics. In this chapter, certain fundamental bioactive pathways, their market potential and some essential information on bioprocesses are discussed.
