Biologists Phyllis Coley and Tom Kursar were trying to unravel the secrets of rainforest ecology when they stumbled on a finding with implications for drug development: Young leaves are rich in toxic compounds that nature has evolved to ward off munching insects.
As much as half the dry weight of young leaves, which have yet to acquire the toughness and bitterness that defend mature leaves, is comprised of hundreds of alkaloids and other chemicals that are not known to science. This insight launched the husband-wife team of University of Utah professors on a quest to find new medicines to fight devastating human diseases, like cancer, HIV and malaria.
Their work, sponsored by the Panama-based Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, has helped open Central America's political leadership to the economic bounty that could be reaped by leaving tropical forests standing, Coley told Salt Lake City business leaders Wednesday.
"One approach to biodiversity is to use it or lose it," she said. Coley and Kursar's research, funded by a consortium of federal agencies led by the National Institutes of Health, promotes "bioprospecting," lauded as a way to provide an economic rationale for conserving imperiled habitats, while advancing medicine.
"The plants and animals found in tropical forests and coral reefs have developed a remarkable array of chemical defences, and these can provide significant insights into new pharmaceuticals," said Jeff McNeely, chief scientist for the International Union for Conservation of Nature, in an e-mail. "Further, the harvesting of these compounds does not necessarily require large-scale collection of specimens."
Half of new medicines are derived from natural sources, Coley said, pointing to quinine's role in treating malaria, willows for creating aspirin, and a Madagascar species of periwinkle that yielded drugs for childhood leukemia.
However, it was Eli Lilly's exploitation of this periwinkle that gave bioprospecting a black eye several years ago when the pharmaceutical giant failed to divert any of the millions it reaped back to the source nation.
Coley avoids the "biopiracy" tag by arranging agreements between her funders and Panamanian hosts to ensure that all economic benefits go to the isthmus nation bridging Central and South America. The research itself presents a huge opportunity for developing nations. The pharmaceutical industry spends $43 billion a year on research and development, while governments and non-profits spends about as much.
"Why don't biodiversity-rich countries tap into these funds?" Coley asked. "A simple solution is to conduct the research in the countries themselves."
Her team has established local research infrastructure that employs and trains Panamanian scientists. Although she has no marketable patents in hand, bioprospecting research supports more jobs than logging, she said.
For bioprospecting to have a conservation impact, host nations and local communities must be able to participate in the economic potential, experts say. Otherwise, the local governments would just as soon log their forests and clear them for cattle and shrimp farms.
The U. team recently won a second $3 million five-year round of funding and has turned its sights on fungi and marine organisms.
A few of the U. team's finds have been patented, including a leaf compound that can fight leishmaniasis, a sandfly-borne tropical disease that causes painful skin lesions. The compound cured mice, but was shelved because it also made them lose weight. Coley and Kursar patented three more compounds -- two stemming from blue green alga and one from an endophytic, or plant-dwelling, fungus -- that show promise fighting cancer and malaria. Still, it takes 10 years for a compound to reach the market and only a tiny minority get that far.
