Tiny Antarctic sea creature could be key to treating melanoma, researchers say

Underwater expedition by Florida-based team supports possible therapeutic use of bacterial toxins from sea squirts

Researchers at a Florida university say bacterial toxins produced by tiny marine organisms they have studied in Antarctica could become an effective treatment for melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.

A team from the University of South Florida (USF), Desert Research Institute (DRI) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) recently returned from a six-week expedition to one of the world's remotest regions in which they collected samples of ascidians, invertebrates known as sea squirts that thrive in the icy waters.