Forget the rain forest. Eric Buenz has discovered another wilderness to scour for promising pharmaceuticals: archaic medical textbooks. In May 2003, the Mayo Clinic researcher was attending a field discussion in ethnobotany when it occurred to him that the plants mentioned in old textbooks might lead to new treatments. "We'd look for plants that didn't have a modern match," he says. "They would be ideal drug targets."
Buenz started with the Ambonese Herbal, a guide to 1,300 plants used to treat diseases in 17th-century Indonesia, compiled by an employee of the Dutch East Indies Company. Buenz fed the plant names into Napralert, the University of Illinois at Chicago's gigantic database of biochemical and ethnomedical references. A handful of plants came up without a match, including Dracontomelon sylvestre, which Ambonese Herbal credits with treating "fire piss." Online medical databases identify fire piss as gonorrhea, which is usually treated with antibiotics, anti-infectives, and anti-Treponema, so Buenz could screen D. sylvestre for all three. In a world where companies spend millions to find even one prospective drug target, Buenz's resourceful method is a pharmacological gold mine.
Now Buenz is searching old texts on a larger scale, using a Kirtas Technologies book scanner with vacuum arms that gently turn the pages of even the most delicate tomes. At 1,000 pages an hour, a new cure for fire piss might be just the beginning.
Lontar tree (Licuala rumphii)
Herbal use: Treating tuberculosis and colitis
Drug potential: Antibiotic, antidiarrheal, anti-infective
Mealy palm tree (Metroxylon sagu)
Herbal use: Healing flesh wounds and sores
Drug potential: Topical ulcer treatment, wound-healing promoter, antibacterial
Wild cadju tree (Semecarpus cassuvium)
Herbal use: Remedy for shingles
Drug potential: Antiviral, analgesic, anti-inflammatory
Anona tree (Anona reticulata)
Herbal use: Antidiarrheal and dysentery aid
Drug potential: Opiate
Maldivian coconut (Lodoicea maldivica)
Herbal use: Reducing inflammation and fever
Drug potential: Anti-inflammatory, antipyretic
Wild dragon tree (Dracontomelon sylvestre)
Herbal use: Medication for gonorrhea
Drug potential: Antibiotic, anti-infective, anti-treponema
- Steven Kotler
credit é 1995-2004 Missouri Botanical Garden
Lontar tree
credit é 1995-2004 Missouri Botanical Garden
Mealy palm tree
credit é 1995-2004 Missouri Botanical Garden
Wild cadju tree
credit é 1995-2004 Missouri Botanical Garden
Anona tree
credit é 1995-2004 Missouri Botanical Garden
Maldivian coconut
credit é 1995-2004 Missouri Botanical Garden
Wild dragon tree
START
The Oldest Cures in the Book
Artificial Hearts: The Beat Goes On
