Our goal is to help develop bioprospecting as a conservation tool for rainforests in Panama. Panamanians will be involved in all aspects of the work, and an effort will be made to transfer technology and knowledge to the host country. We will pursue these conservation goals by employing three novel aspects in our search for biomedically useful compounds. First, we will compare success of screening random collections of plants with a targeted search based on our ecological insight into plant defenses. Second, we will do initial screens in the rainforest comparing extracts from leaves dried using standard procedures with extracts from freshly collected leaves. Screens with freshly extracted leaves are much more likely to show activity. Third, in order to run field assays, we will develop screening and collection techniques that can be conducted under primitive conditions in communities near the forest. In addition, we will pursue assay-guided isolation and structure determination of the active compounds in our lab at the University of Utah. These activities would form the initial steps of our larger goal to contribute to conservation efforts by establishing a model program for drug discovery in developing nations. Our long-term plans involve developing screens appropriate for local technology, establishing cottage-industry style involvement by forest communities, training host country scientists in more advanced techniques, and helping establish a self-sustained drug discovery program.
