Posted by Larry Hoover on January 3, 2006, at 0:02:58
In reply to What would you do as an ethnobotanical biochemist? » Larry Hoover, posted by crazy teresa on January 2, 2006, at 18:19:20
> It sounds so very mysterious...
Once you hear it, it won't sound so mysterious.
Ethnobotany is the study of the use of plants by different cultures. Often, that is further restricted to medicinal use, i.e. folk medicine.
To incorporate the biochemical aspect, I wanted to look into finding something about the active ingredients, their structures, and biochemical effects in our bodies.
Truthfully, one could spend one's life studying a single plant species in some depth.
Once upon a time, 80% of all your drugs originated in plants. Now, it's dropped to maybe 50%. They are designing new substances on computers, etc.
The anti-bird flu drug, Theraflu, is made from a fairly rare plant material. With the burgeoning world demand for stockpiles of the antiviral, China has virtually extirpated the parent plant. Prices for the raw extracts have increased 20-fold. Anyway, I digress.
That what I wanted to get into, in the early 90's. Late 90's, major pharmaceutical companies funded extensive forays into various cultures, and bought up the rights to their knowledge. In some limited cases, the folk medicine has been further studied, but mostly it was to lock it up. To keep others from studying these plants (patented), publishing (same), profiting from, etc. To turn "common knowledge" into proprietary information.
The indiginous peoples got little in return. Mostly, they didn't even understand what the contracts were about.
Meanwhile, deforestation, and rapid climate change, and all that, are wiping out entire ecosystems, and all the mysteries and riches they once contained.
There you have it.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:594214
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20060102/msgs/594623.html