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Arenas such as this Samoan jungle are more likely to provide the materials bioprospectors are looking for than a sterile labratory.

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The world is their lab
Bioprospectors cast a wide net in search of non-traditional cures for disease.
Story by Chris Mason

Picture yourself as a scientist in search of the next wonder drug. Odds are good you’ve got the image all wrong. Take away the lab, the white coat and much of the equipment and replace it with a Samoan forest, tropical clothing and a mishmash of unconventional tools.

Today there is an increasing trend within the scientific community to step out of the lab and explore traditional cultures for non-traditional cures to ailments for which artificial medicines have fallen short. These enterprising researchers come from a wide array of backgrounds — chemistry, biology, physics, geography, anthropology. As a group, they’re known as bioprospectors.

WHAT IT TAKES
You need more than scientific book smarts to be a bioprospector, and that’s why the field draws people from so many disciplines. A group of researchers studies a region, its inhabitants, their languages, known history, way of life and the plants they have at their disposal.

“Our teams are so diversified because working in a region usually requires knowledge of history and anthropology before the science aspect of it comes into play,” says Susan Murch, who describes herself as “a chemist with an interest in plants.” Murch is based at the University of Guelph, but her studies of the medicinal knowledge of traditional cultures have taken her all over the world.

Bioprospectors are brought together by a shared interest in traditional cultures and their practices but are kept together by funding.

“[Bioprospecting] is fascinating and important, notwithstanding that it may not be as lucrative a source of economic development as some might hope,” says John Herity, director of the Canadian Office of the World Conservation Union. During the 1990s, Herity worked on the Canadian Biodiversity Strategy, which focuses on preserving and understanding Canada’s biological resources.

Murch says it can be difficult to get funding for broadly mandated expeditions.

“We often go into regions with an interest in their medicinal knowledge, but we don’t always know what we’re going to find,” Murch says. “Canadian agencies are less interested in exploratory research. [They’re] more likely to fund expeditions with a very narrow focus.”

FOLLOWING THE RULES
The rules governing bioprospecting are spelled out in the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity. The first step in any international expedition is to negotiate with the host government. In most cases, the researchers retain the plant germplasm while the plant material itself remains the property of the host government.

Another key step is ensuring that some of the revenues that come from drugs developed through bioprospecting return to the region that supplied the natural materials. For example, in September 2004, the University of California, Berkeley, and the government of Samoa reached an agreement to share evenly any revenues from Prostratin, an HIV drug derived from the bark and stemwood of the mamala tree. The Samoan portion of the revenues will be divided among the government, local villages and the families of healers who taught bioprospector Paul Alan Cox about the plant.

Murch was involved in an expedition to Samoa with Cox in April 2004. The group visited Saipipi, a village on the island of Savai’i, the northernmost of two islands that form the South Pacific state. Their goal was to work with villagers to see if any of their medicine could be adapted for use on a broad commercial scale.

Beyond using scientific knowledge, a bioprospector has to be resourceful to get the job done — even if it means incurring difficult-to-explain costs.

“You end up with some pretty non-traditional receipts,” Murch says in comparing bioprospecting to traditional lab work. “Our expenses don’t often come from a scientific company. I’m just as likely to submit a napkin with scribbles in Arabic that confirms I paid to rent a bus in a remote village in the middle of a jungle.”

These non-traditional expenses can add up come tax time.

“[Bioprospectors] get audited a lot,” Murch says with a laugh.

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