NATIONAL POST (Toronto, Ontario) 31 May 06 Brazil tribe hopes frog holds the cure: It aims to hold on to rights to derivative from reptile's poison (Paulo Prada, The New York Times)
Brazil: Fernando Katukina is chief of an indigenous tribe that lives largely without running water, electricity, or links to the world outside this remote corner of the western Amazon in the Campinas Indian Reserve.
But Mr. Katukina says he possesses a treasure that could be at the cutting-edge of biotechnology. If a plan initiated by the chief is successful, his tribe's fortunes will be transformed by an asset he and the Brazilian government believe holds great promise for the global pharmaceutical industry: the slime from a poisonous tree frog.
Tribal shamans have used the slime as an ancestral remedy to treat illness, pain, even laziness. The crucial ingredients are compounds with anesthetic, tranquilizing, and other medicinal properties. Scientists say the promise lies in isolating peptides from the frog's slime and then reproducing them for medicines to treat hypertension, stroke, and other illnesses
Already, Mr. Katukina has the backing of Brazil's government, which sees the frog slime as a stepping stone to significantly advance its own research and development in pharmaceuticals. In particular, the scientific challenge of the frog, known locally as the kambo, will deepen Brazil's expertise in pharmacogenomics -- the combined use of genetics and pharmacology -- and it takes advantage of the traditional knowledge of indigenous people.
"Traditional knowledge can help modern medicine and generate significant economic benefits, too," said Bruno Filizola, technical co-ordinator of the project and a biologist at the environment ministry in Brasilia, Brazil's capital.
The indigenous dimension is also crucial because Brazil, like other developing nations, is trying to fight back against what it perceives as biopiracy, the theft of biological resources from the country's native habitats for commercial use. Though the project is still in early stages, about 20 scientists are seeking startup funding of close to US$1-million from more than a dozen universities, state governments, and federal agencies.
There is also a great deal more than naive hope at stake here. Brazilian scientists have already taught the country's farmers, who today are among the world's top exporters, to manipulate soils and alter crops once unsuited for the country's climate. Now many researchers believe science can turn Brazilian forests into working, productive laboratories.
"Brazil has a large, growing, and capable community of scientists keen to develop their own research and products," said Joshua Rosenthal, deputy director of a division for international training and research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.
Brazilian researchers haven't forgotten the case of the jararaca, the Amazonian viper. Pharmaceutical giant Squibb used the snake's venom to develop captopril, a blood-pressure medicine it began selling in 1975.
Though available generically since 1996, the medicine at its commercial peak was the largest-selling product for the company, now part of New York-based Bristol-Myers Squibb, grossing US$1.6-billion in 1991.
"Because of past errors," reads a document from the Brazilian Environment Ministry, "captopril is not Brazilian."
Though home to the world's largest rainforest and one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet, Brazil traditionally has been slow to develop its "genetic patrimony" -- the plants and animals within its territory and the potential they offer for profit. The Ministry document also laments Brazil's historical research lag and the consequent loss of billions in potential revenue from pharmaceuticals, agricultural products, and other commercial goods.
An overview for the effort known as Project Kambo, written by a team of researchers at the Environment Ministry, says: "The national genetic patrimony could be the key to Brazil's transformation in the global political and socio-economic context."
The effort comes as developing countries increasingly promote the idea of developing and commercializing their traditional medicines and local arts. And they are questioning the rights of foreigners to exploit their locally derived products.
At a UN gathering in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba last month, delegates from developing nations called for changes to international law that would allow governments to block -- or at least share profits from -- foreign patents on biological resources found in their territory.
Private industry, of course, objects.
"Developing nations should take a lead by working to develop their own resources -- not blocking the efforts of others to research and invest," said Alan Oxley, a former Australian trade ambassador who is now a consultant in Melbourne and runs a research institute funded in part by the U.S. pharmaceutical industry.
Brazil aims to take a lead through the kambo. The project was launched last year after Marina Silva, Brazil's environment minister, received a letter from Mr. Katukina denouncing the growing use of kambo poison by outsiders. Its perceived benefits in recent years fuelled a pirate trade in the poison in cities across Brazil.
The poison, Mr. Katukina warned, if administered wrongly, could be dangerous. And its use, the letter added, is nothing less than biopiracy; if economic gain is generated by the remedy, then the chief's tribe, which is called the Katukina, should get a cut.
Ms. Silva, a native of the tribe's home state, Acre, agreed. She authorized a ministry project to study the kambo, stipulating that any profit from the research be shared with the tribe.
"The know-how is the tribe's," she said in an interview. "They must share in any rewards."
Scientists have studied the kambo, or phyllomedusa bicolour before. Called the giant monkey frog in English, because it climbs high into the rainforest canopy, the kambo drew attention among foreign researchers decades ago. Some of the compounds from the poison, secreted through the frog's skin, have even been patented abroad.
Yet because scientists are still struggling to understand the poison, none of those patents has led to successful products.
"These compounds have potent effects on human physiology," said Paul Bishop, a biochemist at ZymoGenetics, a Seattle-based pharmaceutical company, and the holder of five patents based on kambo poison. "But we don't fully understand them all or just why they occur in the defences of this tree frog."
That's where Brazil hopes to progress. While biologists and chemists investigate the kambo, its habitat, and the poison's makeup, a team of anthropologists and physicians will study the long-term impact of its use on the Katukina.