Last Updated: September 14, 2007
GROUPS
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- COMPREHENSIVE AWARD RECIPIENTS (2003-2008)
Seven International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups, consisting of diverse public and private institutions including universities, environmental organizations and pharmaceutical companies in nine countries, are currently collaborating on multi-disciplinary projects toward the goals outlined in the introduction.
BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION AND DRUG DISCOVERY IN MADAGASCAR
Dr. David G.I. Kingston of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, is collaborating in a third five-year ICBG to study tropical plants and marine organisms in Madagascar. The group includes Missouri Botanical Garden, Conservation International, the Madagascar National Centers for Pharmaceutical Research, for Environmental Research and for Oceanographic Research, as well as Eisai Pharmaceutical Research Institute and Dow Agrosciences.
BIOASSAY AND ECOLOGY DIRECTED DRUG DISCOVERY IN PANAMA
Dr. William H. Gerwick, in collaboration with colleagues at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, building on a previous five-year ICBG award, are using ecological insight to build a sustainable bioprospecting program in Panama for discovery of both pharmaceutical and agricultural products from plants and marine algae in collaboration with Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Oregon State University, Panama's National Secretariat for Science, Technology, and Innovation, the University of Panama, Novartis Oncology, and Dow Agrosciences.
BIODIVERSITY OF VIETNAM AND LAOS
Dr. Djaja (Doel) Soejarto and colleagues from the University of Illinois at Chicago are leading a second five year ICBG to integrate studies on biodiversity and the discovery of pharmacological agents for AIDS, cancer, malaria and tuberculosis from tropical forest plants of Laos and Vietnam. Collaborating institutions include the National Center for Natural Sciences and Technology and Cuc-Phuong National Park in Vietnam, the Research Institute for Medicinal Plants in Laos, Purdue University, and Bristol Myers-Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute.
BUILDING NEW PHARMACEUTICAL CAPABILITIES IN CENTRAL ASIA
Dr. Ilya Raskin and colleagues from Rutgers University lead a project focused on the plant, fungal and microbial biodiversity of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Khazakhstan. Other partners include the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, Tashkent State Agrarian University and Kyrgyz Agricultural Research Institute, Eisai Research Institute, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Phytomedics Inc, and WellGen.
CONSERVATION AND SUSTAINABLE USE OF BIODIVERSITY IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Dr. Louis R. Barrows and colleagues from the University of Utah are collaborating with several organizations of Papua New Guinea as sources of pharmaceutical and botanical therapies for local and global health needs. Partners in this project include the University of Papua New Guinea, National Forest Research Institute, and PNG Bionet of Papua New Guinea, the Smithsonian Institution, University of Miami, Nature Conservancy, and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.
ECOLOGICAL LEADS: DRUGS FROM REEFS AND MICROBES IN
FIJI
Dr. Mark Hay and colleagues of the Georgia Institute of Technology are collaborating with Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the University of the South Pacific, and the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission of Fiji to examine plant, freshwater and marine coral reef organisms of Fiji to assess conservation priorities and discover new therapeutic agents.
POTENTIAL DRUGS FROM POORLY UNDERSTOOD COSTA RICAN
BIOTA
Dr. Jon Clardy of Harvard University is collaborating with the National Biodiversity Institute of Costa Rica (INBio) to explore poorly understood endophytic fungi and uncultured soil microbes of Costa Rica. Major therapeutic areas of interest include cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and malaria.
- EXPLORATORY GRANTS (2003-2005)
BIODIVERSITY AND DRUG DISCOVERY IN THE PHILIPPINES
Dr. Michael Kron and colleagues from Michigan State University are working with several components of the University of the Philippines to document microbial community diversity in varied terrestrial and marine locations and explore, with the support of local indigenous communities, the therapeutic potential of natural products from documented and undocumented medicinal plants, invertebrates and microbes derived from areas throughout the Philippines.
DRUG DEVELOPMENT AND BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY CONSERVATION
Dr. Paul Alan Cox and colleagues of the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Hawaii are collaborating with the Samoan Ministry of Trade and Tourism, the Kingdom of Tonga Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, University of California, Santa Cruz, Beth Israel (NY) Integrative Medicine Clinic, the AIDS ReSearch Alliance, Phenomenome Discoveries Inc., Anti-Cancer Inc., and Diversa Inc. to explore plants, marine and micro organisms and develop sustainable production methods of a promising natural product anti-HIV agent.
DRUG DISCOVERY AND BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION IN MADAGASCAR
Dr. Iwao Ojima and colleagues from the State University of New York at Stony Brook are working with the Institute for Conservation of Tropical Environment, the University of Antananarivo, and the University of Fianarantsoa of Madagascar as well as the California Academy of Sciences, INDENA SpA, and the University of the Eastern Piedmont of Italy to explore plants and arthropods of Madagascar.
NEW DRUGS FROM MARINE NATURAL RESOURCES- JAMAICAN REEFS
Dr. Larry Walker and colleagues from the National Center for Natural Products Research, with the National Institute of Undersea Science and Technology of the University of Mississippi are collaborating with Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory of the University of West Indies to research the biodiversity and therapeutic potential of marine coral reef organisms of Jamaica.
STUDIES OF THE FLORA AND PREDATOR BACTERIA OF JORDAN
Dr. Nicholas Oberlies and colleagues from Research Triangle Institute, in collaboration with Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, the University of North Carolina and Jordan University of Science and Technology, and the University of Jordan will examine the diversity and therapeutic potential of selected medicinal plants and bacteria of Jordan.
- PAST AWARDS (1993-2003)
BIOACTIVE AGENTS FROM DRYLAND BIODIVERSITY OF LATIN AMERICA (1993-2003)
Dr. Barbara Timmermann of the University of Arizona lead a ten-year ICBG program aimed at discovering biologically active agents for pharmaceutical and agricultural uses from arid and semi-arid land plants in Argentina, Chile, and Mexico. Collaborating in this effort were the Institute for Tuberculosis Research, University of Illinois at Chicago; Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia, Agropecuaria (INTA), Argentina; Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile; Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, and Wyeth Research Laboratories.
CHEMICAL PROSPECTING IN A COSTA RICAN CONSERVATION AREA (1993-1998)
Dr. Jerome Meinwald and colleagues of Cornell University in Ithaca, NY completed a five-year ICBG program to evaluate tropical insectes and related arthropods in Guanacaste Conservation Area of Costa Rica for potential pharmaceutical agents. Collaborators were the Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio), Costa Rica, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
DRUG DEVELOPMENT AND CONSERVATION OF BIODIVERSITY IN WEST AFRICA (1993-2003
Dr. Brian Schuster and colleagues of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, D.C. completed a ten-year ICBG program to evaluate tropical plants in Cameroon and Nigeria for potential pharmaceutical agents and phytomedicines. Collaborators were the Smithsonian Institution, the Bioresources Development and Conservation Programme, Pace University of New York, the University of Utah, the University of Minnesota, the University of Jos and the International Centre for Ethnomedicine and Drug Development in Nigeria, and the University of Dschang, Cameroon.
DRUG DISCOVERY AND BIODIVERSITY AMONG THE MAYA OF MEXICO (1998-2002)
Dr. O. Brent Berlin and colleagues at the University of Georgia in Athens collaborated with scientists at the College of the Southern Frontier in Chiapas, Mexico, and Molecular Nature Ltd. to evaluate pharmacologically important tropical plants and fungi utilized by the Maya-speaking peoples of southern Mexico. This project was terminated prematurely in 2002. The journal Nature published a news feature about the Chiapas ICBG on December 13, 2001. That feature and a letter of clarification from NIH, NSF, and USDA staff are available: The Curtain Falls Nature 414, 685, (2001) December 13, 2001; Curtain has fallen on hopes of legal bioprospecting Nature 416, 15, (2002) March 7, 2002.
PERUVIAN MEDICINAL PLANT SOURCES OF NEW PHARMACEUTICALS (1993-1998)
Dr. Walter H. Lewis and colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis, MO collected plants which have been used medicinally by people in Peru and elsewhere in South America for generations to treat a broad range of illnesses.