What is ICBG?
ICBG stands for International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups, and
is an experimental effort funded by the US Government and supported
by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation
and the Department of Agriculture. The Panama ICBG is one of several
such projects around the world.
What
are the goals of the ICBG?
It is an attempt to integrate pharmaceutical and agricultural discovery
with economic development and biodiversity conservation. The ICBG
project has 3 goals:
- Improve human
health through the discovery of new agents to treat diseases of
importance in both developed and developing countries and to improve
agriculture.
- Promote scientific
and economic activity is less developed countries by sharing the
benefit of the drug discovery and conservation research process
and products.
- Conserve
biological diversity through understanding and valuation of diverse
biological organisms and the development of local capacity to
manage these natural resources.
What
is ICBG-Panama?
The ICBG-Panama is one of the ICBG projects entitled "Ecologically
Guided Bioprospecting in Panama". It focuses on drug discovery
research by collecting plants using criteria developed through ecological
research, and by extracting fresh samples that are later tested
in bioassays for activity against certain diseases and agricultural
pests.
What
bioassays are conducted?
The project does research in finding new drugs for treatment of
cancer and AIDS as well as tropical diseases such as leishmaniasis,
malaria and Chagas' disease. In addition samples are tested for
toxicity to agricultural pests such as white-fly and aphids.
Why
choose Panama?
Panama is a biodiversity hotspot with some of the highest regional
plant diversity in the world, is uniquely situated as a biological
corridor between Central and South and America and still has relatively
accessible and intact forests, all traits that make it a critical
area for conservation and bioprospecting.
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