Martin Abbugao, Yahoo News 23 Apr 08;
The world risks wiping out a new generation of antibiotics and cures for diseases if it fails to reverse the extinction of thousands of plant and animal species, experts warned Wednesday.
Biodiversity loss has reached alarming levels, and disappearing with it are the secrets to finding treatments for pain, infections and a wide array of ailments such as cancer, they said, citing the findings of a coming book.
Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said more than 16,000 known species are threatened with extinction, but the number could be more.
"We must do something about what is happening to biodiversity," he said at a news conference on the sidelines of the UN-backed Business for the Environment conference.
"Societies depend on nature for treating diseases. Health systems over human history have their foundation on animal and plant products that are used for treatment."
Technological revolution in the 19th and 20th centuries took the focus on finding cures away from nature as pharmaceutical companies relied on technical components to make medicines, he said.
These companies are increasingly turning back to nature as they run out of chemical combinations, he said.
But the world is "losing the intellectual patents of nature before we even have the chance to understand or unravel them," Steiner said.
"This is the tragedy of not understanding biodiversity," he said, adding it would be a "big fallacy" to think that biodiversity is not linked to the phenomenon of climate change.
The book, previewed at the conference, cited the example of the southern gastric brooding frog discovered in the rainforests of Australia in the 1980s. It has since become extinct.
Research on those frogs could have led to new insights into preventing and treating human peptic ulcers which affect 25 million people in the United States alone, according to the authors of the book, "Sustaining Life".
Valuable medical secrets which the frogs held "are now gone forever," the book's key authors, Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein, were quoted as saying in a press statement.
The book contains a chapter describing how seven threatened groups of organisms -- amphibians, bears, cone snails, sharks, non-human primates, gymnosperms and horseshoe crabs -- can be valuable in finding cures for diseases.
The Panamanian poison frog, for example, can make pumiliotoxins that may lead to medicines for heart disease, while alkaloids from the Ecuadorian poison frog could be a source for painkillers, it says.
Cone snails produce a compound which has been shown in clinical trials to be a pain reliever for advanced cancer and AIDS patients, according to the book.
David Suzuki, a Canadian scientist and environmental activist, blamed environmental degradation on the world's heavy focus on economic progress.
"We are creating an illusion that everything is fine, and we are getting richer and richer. But we're doing it at the expense of our children and grandchildren... all in the name of economic growth and progress," he said in a keynote address via videoconference.
One solution will be to "take our eyes off the economy," he suggested.
"The real bottom line is clean air, clean water, clean soil that gives us our food, clean energy that comes from the sun, and biodiversity. These are ultimately the most important needs that we have to fight for at all cost."
Hundreds of international business executives, government officials, environmentalists and others have gathered for conference.
It was organised by the UNEP and the UN's Global Compact, an initiative which brings companies together with the UN and other agencies to support environmental and social principles.
UN official: Biodiversity loss could hurts medical research
Gillian Wong, Associated Press Yahoo News 23 Apr 08;
The world risks losing new medical treatments for osteoporosis, cancer and other human ailments if it does not act quickly to conserve the planet's biodiversity, a senior United Nations environmental official said Wednesday.
Earth's organisms offer a variety of naturally made chemical compounds with which scientists could develop new medicines, but are under threat of extinction, said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program.
"We must do something about what is happening to biodiversity," Steiner told reporters. "We must help society understand how much we already depend on diversity of life to run our economies, our lives, but more importantly, what are we losing in terms of future potential."
Steiner was announcing the conclusions of a new medical book, "Sustaining Life," on the sidelines of a UNEP-organized conference in Singapore. The book is the work of more than 100 experts, its key authors based at Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment, and it underscores what may be lost to human health when species go extinct, Steiner said.
"Because of science and technology ... we are in a much better position to unlock this ingenuity of nature found in so many species," he said. "Yet, in many cases, we will find that we have already lost it before we were able to use it."
One example is the southern gastric brooding frog, or Rheobactrachus, which raises its young in the female's stomach. It was discovered in the Australian rainforests in the 1980s.
In other animals, the young would have been digested by enzymes and acids in the stomach. But preliminary studies show the baby frogs produced a substance or a range of substances that inhibited acid and enzyme secretions and prevent the mother from emptying her stomach into her intestines while the young were developing.
Research on this species of frog could have led to new insights into preventing and treating human peptic ulcers, but such studies could not be continued because the two species of Rheobactrachus had become extinct, according to the book.
Steiner said the book looks at seven groups of threatened organisms for potential or known medical value: amphibians, bears, cone snails, sharks, non-human primates, horseshoe crabs and gymnosperms, a type of plant life.
Last year, more than 16,000 species were labeled as threatened with extinction on the Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species.
Biodiversity loss hurts drug discovery, says medical book
Neil Chatterjee, Reuters 23 Apr 08;
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A new generation of drugs made from nature, from antibiotics to treatments for cancer, may be lost unless the world acts to stop biodiversity loss, according to a new book.
These developments could come from chemicals made by frogs, bears and pine trees, but the authors of "Sustaining Life" warned that species loss from climate change and pollution would hit the future of medicine and the pharmaceutical industry.
The book highlights many examples of potential drugs. The southern gastric brooding frog, found in Australian rainforest in the 1980s, raised their young in the female's stomach using enzymes that preliminary studies showed could be used to treat human ulcers. But the frogs became extinct.
"The valuable medical secrets they held are now gone forever," said Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein, the key authors of the book from the Center of Health and the Global Environment of the Harvard Medical School, in a statement released by the United Nations on Wednesday.
The book picks seven groups that could be particularly valuable to medicine: amphibians, bears, cone snails, sharks, primates, horseshoe cabs and gymnosperms that include pines and the ginkgo tree.
The authors say the book's conclusions should not be used as an excuse to harvest wildlife, but as a spur for greater conservation.
Treatments from frogs alone include toxins from the Panamanian Poison Frog that could be useful for heart disease, painkillers from the Ecuadorian Poison Frog, anti-bacterial compounds from the skin of the African Clawed Frog, and compounds from the Chinese Large-Webbed Bell Toad that dilate blood vessels and so could treat high blood pressure.
Frog glue could repair cartilage and other tissue tears in humans, but climatic changes have to led to habitat loss and mutations in frogs. The United Nations is leading talks for a new climate pact to limit emissions of heat-trapping gases.
"Amphibians are particularly sensitive," said Achim Steiner of the U.N. Environment Program, in a press conference at an environment summit in Singapore.
A peptide from cone shells, which mostly live in coral reefs, is thought to be 1,000 times more potent than morphine and in clinical trials, has provided pain relief for advanced cancer and AIDS patients. Another peptide from horseshoe crabs has shown promise in treating prostate and breast cancer.
People lose bone mass when bed-ridden but hibernating bears produce new bone, by using a substance that may have uses in fractures and osteoporosis. The ginkgo tree could counter Alzheimer's and shark livers could produce antibiotics.
The U.N is hoping for an agreement on conservation at the Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn in May.
"You can invest in conservation -- deals can be made in favor of nature," said Steiner.
(Editing by Valerie Lee)
Preserving biodiversity a global concern
Business Times 24 Apr 08;
MANY potential medical treatments will be lost if humanity does not start stemming the loss of biodiversity. And greater cooperation between countries and institutions is needed to tap on nature's cures.
This was the message delivered by United Nations under-secretary general Achim Steiner at the launch of the book Sustaining Life yesterday.
The book documents threatened groups of organisms valuable to medicine, and is supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Mr Steiner, who is also executive director of UNEP, said: 'Habitat loss, destruction and degradation of ecosystems, pollution, over-exploitation and climate change are among the powerful and persistent impacts that are running down the planet's nature-based capital, including the medical treasure trove of the world's biodiversity.'
The extinction of the Rheobatrachus frog, for instance, meant the loss of a potential treatment for peptic ulcers.
Baby frogs produced substances that inhibited acid and enzyme secretions and research would have shed more light on the prevention and cure of peptic ulcers in humans.
The condition affects some 25 million people in the US alone.
Singapore's ambassador-at-large Tommy Koh, who also spoke at the book launch, said Singapore's rich biodiversity has turned up medical results.
The National University of Singapore, for instance, derived a compound for detecting toxins from the horseshoe crab, and a patent for the compound has been issued.
But access to and sharing of benefits from biodiversity remain huge problems. While countries may offer their resources to researchers or corporations for study, they may not share financial benefits derived from commercial discoveries.
This may lead host countries to restrict access to resources, preventing further research being done.
Biodiversity Loss - It Will Make You Sick
"Sustaining Life" Identifies Huge Losses to Medical Science from the Decline and Extinction of the World's Nature-Based Assets
UNEP website 24 Apr 08;
Singapore/Nairobi, 24 April - A new generation of antibiotics, new treatments for thinning bone disease and kidney failure, and new cancer treatments may all stand to be lost unless the world acts to reverse the present alarming rate of biodiversity loss a new landmark book says.
The natural world holds secrets to the development of new kinds of safer and more powerful pain-killers; treatments for a leading cause of blindness- macular degeneration- and possibly ways of re-growing lost tissues and organs by, for example studying newts and salamanders.
But, the experts warn that we may lose many of the land and marine-based life forms of economic and medical interest before we can learn their secrets, or, in some cases, before we know they exist.
The new book, 'Sustaining Life', is the most comprehensive treatment of this subject to date and fills a major gap in the arguments made to conserve nature.
Promising Treatment for Peptic Ulcers Lost
A particularly illustrative example, highlighted by the book's authors, of what may be lost with species extinctions can be found in the southern gastric brooding frog
(Rheobatrachus) which was discovered in undisturbed rainforests of Australia in the
1980s.
The frogs raise their young in the female's stomach where they would, in other animals, be digested by enzymes and acid.
Preliminary studies indicated that the baby frogs produced a substance, or perhaps a variety of substances, that inhibited acid and enzyme secretions and prevented the mother from emptying her stomach into her intestines while the young were developing.
The authors point out that the research on gastric brooding frogs could have led to new insights into preventing and treating human peptic ulcers which affect some 25 million people in the United States alone.
"But these studies could not be continued because both species of Rheobactrachus became extinct, and the valuable medical secrets they held are now gone forever," say Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein, the key authors of the book based at the Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School.
The findings, announced during the Business for the Environment Summit in Singapore, come in the run up to the 9th meeting of the parties to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)-linked Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) taking place in Bonn, Germany later in May.
Here delegates from close to 190 countries; business leaders, academia and members of civil society will look to accelerate action to reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010.
(See Quotes by Key Players below)
'Sustaining Life', the work of more than 100 experts and published by Oxford University
Press, has been supported by UNEP; the Secretariat of the CBD; the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and IUCN.
At the heart of the book is a chapter dedicated to exploring seven threatened groups of organisms valuable to medicine, including amphibians, bears, cone snails, sharks, nonhuman primates, gymnosperms, and horseshoe crabs that underscore what may be lost to human health when species go extinct.
These losses include: promising new avenues of medical research and new treatments, pharmaceuticals and diagnostic tests.
Experts, including the authors, emphasize that the book's conclusions should not be construed as a license to harvest wildlife in a way that puts further pressure on already threatened, vulnerable and endangered species.
Instead they should be a spur for even greater conservation and improved management of species and the ecosystems they inhabit.
Amphibians
The class Amphibians is made up of frogs, toads, newts, salamanders and caecilians-little known legless organisms that resemble giant earthworms. Nearly one third of the approximately 6000 known amphibian species are threatened with extinction.
These animals produce a wide range of novel substances, some of which are made only by amphibians living in the wild, not by those in captivity.
These include the:-
Pumiliotoxins, like those made by the Panamanian Poison Frog that may lead to medicines that strengthen the contractions of the heart and thus prove useful in treating heart disease.
Alkaloids made by species like the Ecuadorian Poison Frog, which could be the source of a new and novel generation of pain-killers.
Antibacterial compounds produced in the skin of frogs and toads such as the African
Clawed Frog and South and Central American leaf frogs.
Bradykinins and maximakinins, made in the skin glands of species like the Chinese
Large-Webbed Bell Toad; Mexican Leaf Frog, and North American Pickerel Frog that dilate the smooth muscle of blood vessels in mammals and therefore offer promising avenues for treating high blood pressure.
Frog glue, produced by species such as the Australian frog, could lead to natural adhesives for repairing cartilage and other tissue tears in humans.
Many species of newts and salamanders, such as the Eastern Spotted Newt, can re-grow tissues such as heart muscle; nerve tissue in the spinal cord and even whole organs. As we are in evolutionary terms relatively closely related to these species, they are vital models for understanding how we might someday harness our own dormant regenerative potential.
Some frogs, such as the Gray Tree Frog and the Chorus Frog can survive long periods of freezing without suffering cell damage-understanding how these frogs do this may yield key insights into how we might better preserve scarce organs needed for transplant.
Bears
Nine species of bear are threatened with extinction including the polar bear; the Giant Panda, and the Asiatic Black Bear.
The threats to bears are similar to those amphibians face, but in addition many bears are
at risk because they are killed for body parts, such as gall bladders, which can command high prices in black markets in places like China, Japan and Thailand.
Several medical benefits have already arisen from the study of bears, including the development of ursodeoxycholic acid, found in the gall bladders of some bear species such as polar and black bears, into a medicine.
The substance is used to prevent the build up of bile during pregnancy; dissolve certain kinds of gallstones; and prolong the life of patients with a specific kind of liver disease, known as primary biliary cirrhosis, giving them more time to find a liver transplant.
Some bear species, known as "denning" bears because they enter into a largely dormant state when food is scarce, are of tremendous value to medicine as they are able to recycle a wide variety of their body's substances.
Unlike people, who if 'bed-ridden' for a five-month period can lose up to a third of their bone mass, bears actually lay down new bone during the denning period.
Bears appear to produce a substance that inhibits cells that break down bone and promote substances that encourage bone and cartilage-making cells. Currently, 740,000 deaths a year are the result of hip fractures worldwide, a large number of which are caused by osteoporosis.
By 2050 there will be an estimated six million osteoporosis-linked hip fractures globally.
Denning bears can survive for a period of five months or more without excreting their urinary wastes, whereas humans would die from the build up of these toxic substances after only a few days.
An estimated 1.5 million people worldwide are receiving treatment for end-stage renal disease, and more than 80,000 die each year in the U.S. alone from this disease. By studying denning bears, we may be able to learn how to treat them more effectively and help large numbers to survive.
Denning bears may also hold clues to treating Type 1 and Type II diabetes as well as obesity. Worldwide there are an estimated 150 to 200 million cases of Type II diabetes.
When produced in a non-invasive and ethically acceptable way, without pushing already threatened species further towards extinction, these substances are of great value to medicine.
Gymnosperms including pines and spruces
Close to 1,000 species of Gymnosperms have been identified. Evolutionary they are among the oldest of any plants alive but many groups, such as the cycads, are classified as endangered.
Several pharmaceuticals, including decongestants and the anti-cancer drug taxol, have already been isolated from gymnosperms.
The researchers believe many more are yet to be discovered and may be lost if species of Gymnosperms become extinct.
Substances from one Gymnosperm, the Ginkgo tree may reduce the production of receptors in the human nervous system linked with memory loss. Thus they may play a role in countering Alzheimer's disease. They may also help in the treatment of epilepsy and depression.
Cone Snails
Around 700 species make up the cone snails, seven of which were identified only since
2004. While only four are now classified as vulnerable, no thorough assessment has been made in over ten years and thus current listings may underestimate the true number of endangered cone snail species.
For example almost 70 per cent of some 380 cone snail species surveyed had more than half their geographic range within areas where coral reefs, their main habitats, are threatened.
Cone snail species may produce as many as 70,000 to 140,000 peptide compounds, large numbers of which may have value as human medicines, yet only a few hundred have been characterized.
One compound, known as ziconotide, is thought to be 1000 times more potent than morphine and has been shown in clinical trials to provide significant pain relief for advanced cancer and AIDS patients. Another cone snail compound has been shown in animal models to protect brain cells from death during times of inadequate blood flow.
It could prove a breakthrough therapy for people suffering head injuries and strokes and may even contribute to therapy for patients with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
Other potential developments from cone snail peptides include treatments for urinary incontinence and cardiac arrhythmias.
Sharks
There are at least 400 species of sharks, which, as a group, evolved in ancient seas 400 to 450 million years ago.
Many species are now threatened, with some species, such as the Scalloped Hammerhead, White Shark and Thresher Shark, falling in numbers by as much as 75 percent over the past 15 years.
Over-fishing has been the main reason for the losses, and has been driven by: an increased demand for shark meat as a substitute for traditional commercial fish catches in foods like fish and chips; the rise in consumption of shark fin soup; increases in by-catch, for example, in tuna fisheries; and an increased market for shark cartilage products for a variety of unproved medical purposes.
?? Squalamine, a substance isolated from sharks such as dogfish, especially abundant in their livers, may lead to a new generation of antibiotics as well as treatments against fungal and protozoan infections.
?? Studies are also being undertaken with squalamine compounds as possible antitumor and appetite-suppressant substances.
?? Trials are now also underway to see if squalamine can treat age-related macular degeneration which can lead to severe vision loss. The shark substance may halt the growth of new blood cells in the retina, which is linked to a loss of retinal function and blindness in these patients.
?? The salt glands of some sharks are also being studied to gain insight into how the human kidney functions and how chloride ions are transported across membranes, which may shed light on two diseases-cystic fibrosis and polycystic kidney disease.
?? Sharks, having evolved as some of the first creatures with a fully functioning 'adaptive' immune system are irreplaceable models to help us understand human immunity. "What potential these creatures may still hold to further our knowledge of immunity is being rapidly depleted with the mass slaughter of sharks and the endangerment of sharks worldwide," say the book's authors.
Horseshoe Crabs
There are four species of horseshoe crabs, with each organism possessing four eyes and six other light-detecting organs as well as blood that turns cobalt blue when exposed to the air.
Because only around ten offspring survive out of the estimated 90,000 eggs produced by a female, they are highly sensitive to overfishing.
Once harvested and processed to be used as fertilizer, they are now used as bait for eel and whelk fisheries. Horseshoe crabs are also important in the food chain, especially for birds like the Red Knott, which rely upon the eggs for fuel over their 16,000 km migratory journey
Horseshoe crabs also have tremendous value to medicine.
Several classes of peptides have been isolated from the creatures' blood that appear to kill a wide range of bacteria.
Another pepetide from the horseshoe crab has been developed into a compound known as T140 which locks onto the receptor in humans that allows the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) to gain access into the body's immune cells. Preclinical trails indicate that the substance is at least as effective as the drug AZT at inhibiting the replication of HIV.
T140 has also shown promise in preventing the spread of certain cancers such as leukemia, prostate cancer and breast cancer, and as a possible treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.
Other cells in the blood of horseshoe crabs can, for example, detect the presence of key bacteria in the spinal fluid of people suspected of having cerebral meningitis.
The test is so sensitive it can detect at levels of 1 picogram per milliliter of solution- roughly the equivalent of finding one grain of sugar in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Quote from Key Players
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said:
"Habitat loss, destruction and degradation of ecosystems, pollution, over-exploitation and climate change are among the powerful and persistent impacts that are running down the planet's nature-based capital, including the medical treasure trove of the world's biodiversity".
"The CBD has achieved a great deal but it needs to achieve much more if it is to meet the international community's goals and objectives. We need a breakthrough in Bonn on all three pillars of the convention-conservation, sustainable use, and access and benefit sharing of genetic resources," he said.
Sigmar Gabriel, Minister of the Environment, Germany, said: "We are currently in the process of wiping nature's hard drive - at a tremendous pace and without any hope of restoring the data once it is lost. We have to comprehend the extent of the damage we are doing to ourselves so that we can bring about a change of course. In order to curb the ongoing destruction of biodiversity before 2010 and thus reverse the trend, we must finally adopt effective measures at international level. This is our overriding goal for the upcoming 9th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn."
Ahmed Djoghlaf, UN Assistant Secretary General and Executive Secretary, Convention on Biological Diversity, said: "The Earth's biodiversity, much of which has yet to be discovered, provides a unique opportunity to improve not only the health of current but also that of future generations".
"However as species are lost so too are our options for future discovery and advancement. Thus "Sustaining Life" provides poignant evidence that biodiversity loss is not merely an environmental issue but one which affects us on a very basic, fundamental and personal level," he said.
Jeffrey McNeely, Chief Scientist at IUCN and a co-author of the book, says: "While extinction is alarming in its own right, this book demonstrates that many species can help save human lives. If we needed more justification for action to conserve species, this book offers dozens of dramatic examples of both why and how citizens can act in ways that will conserve, rather than destroy, the species that enrich our lives.
Kemal Dervis, Administrator of UNDP, said:
"People everywhere, and particularly the rural poor, depend on biodiversity for food, fuel, shelter, medicines and livelihoods. Unless we can slow down the rapid extinction rate, which is currently being greatly accelerated by climate change, biodiversity loss will seriously jeopardize our prospects for achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015."
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