The
5 MEDICAL PEOPLE OF INTEREST
DIVER FOR A CURE
BY CAMILLE S. YATES
PHOTO BY ED DRONDOSKI
She is a chemist, a diver, and a discoverer out to
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change the world of medicine. Dr. Amy E. Wright is
committed to finding cures for cancers and infectious
diseases by discovering unknown compounds
in marine invertebrates that have anti-cancer and
disease-fighting properties.
Wright is a natural products chemist and head of the
Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution/Florida Atlantic
University Division of Biomedical Marine Research. Her
laboratory is filled with specimens of soft corals, sea fans,
sponges, sea slugs and algae, all of which potentially harbor
compounds that fight cancer and disease.
Wright spent time as a child searching for various critters
in California’s tide pools, a pastime very similar to her work
in a 25-year career in biochemistry. She has conducted more
than 200 dives in Harbor Branch’s submersible diving crafts,
and countless scuba dives searching the oceans around the
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