The unique research field of Marine Natural Products was founded in early 1970s by such great pioneers as Paul J. Scheuer, Luigi Minale, D. John Faulkner, and Kenneth J. Rinehart, all of whom we sadly lost in last several years. The first generation of MNP research focused on the isolation and structure elucidation of new compounds from marine macro-organisms, which resulted in the isolation of more than 10,000 new compounds. MNP research has rapidly expanded to the multidisciplinary research field, including pharmacology, chemical ecology, biosynthesis, molecular biology, genomics, chemical biology, and chemical genomics. The first GRC on Marine Natural Products was held in 1975 at Santa Barbara. The sixteenth Conference in this series will continue a mainstream of this field, the discovery of exciting new compounds and exploration of hitherto untouched resources. The new methodologies and techniques, such as a metabolomic approach to marine natural products, are important areas in MNP. "Drugs from the sea" is one of goals of MNP research. The recent approval of Ω-conotoxin MVIIA (Prialt ®) as an analgesic is encouraging news for MNP community. Conotoxins continue to be one of the most exciting sources of drugs. At moment more that 20 MNPs and their analogs are under clinical trials. However, the "supply issue" is yet to be solved; large-scale syntheses of discodermolide and spongistatin-1 as well as cloning of biosynthetic gene clusters of symbiotic microorganisms provide solutions of this problem. Of course, studies on modes of action of MNPs are important, which is not only ubiquitous for drug development, but also lead to development of marine-derived research tools. Analysis of molecular basis for intra- and interspecific interactions of marine organisms deepens our understanding of various phenomena in marine environments, e.g. symbiosis, biofouling, defense, and reproduction.