What's up Brasilia?

[racoll]

But is anyone aware of fish helping research?

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/p ... p?news=483

[Mike_Noren]

Any poisonous organism is potentially interesting to pharmaceutical companies. Medicines are, after all, simply poisons which are less poisonous to you than they are to the parasite or bacterium it's supposed to combat. So, I would assume there are catfish which might be of interest to the bioprospectors of pharmaceutical companies.

Mostly, though, they're not interested in vertebrates, as vertebrates are a fairly uniform bunch without many interesting chemicals, but mainly in "lower" forms of life, especially plants and bacteria, loaded as they are with exotic toxins.
The biopiracy laws of most developing countries are however designed to cover all bases, so vertebrates, e.g. fish, are not exempt - and it is, like I said, not inconceivable that there may be catfish with toxins which could be turned into a massively profitable medication.