Ancient Wisdom used for Modern illness

[Guest guest]

MAYBE INDIAN GOVT CAN DO THE SAME BY APPLYING ANCIENT INDIGENOUS

METHODOLOGIES TOWRDS FINDING A SOLUTION FOR INDIA'S MANY MODERN

PROBLEMS.

Samoa endorses use of

plant to fight AIDS

It would earn 50% in royalties if

its plants can fight the ailment

http://starbulletin.com/2004/10/02/news/story3.html

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"The best part for me is to see how ancient wisdom from healing

plants has been coupled with cutting-edge technology in a way that

will benefit not only Samoa and UC-Berkeley, but the entire world,"

Cox said in an e-mail from London, where he announced the Samoa

agreement at the Natural History Museum on Thursday, simultaneously

with announcements in Samoa and Berkeley.

 

 

By Diana Leone

dleone@s...

A Kauai-based botanist who studies medicinal uses of plants has

helped broker an agreement between the University of California at

Berkeley and the Samoan government to isolate the gene for a

promising anti-AIDS drug.

 

Under the deal announced Thursday, any royalties from the sale of a

gene-derived drug developed by UC-Berkeley from the gene sequence of

the indigenous Samoan mamala tree will be shared with the people of

Samoa.

 

It supports Samoa's assertion of national sovereignty over the gene

sequence of Prostratin, a drug extracted from the bark of the mamala

tree (Homolanthus nutans).

 

The drug is being studied by scientists around the world because of

its potential to force the AIDS virus out of hibernation in the

body's immune cells and into the line of fire of anti-AIDS drugs now

in use.

 

The pact helps fulfill the promise that botanist Paul Alan Cox made

to Samoans 20 years ago when he was studying medicinal plants with

native healers in villages there. He said he vowed to help them

benefit from the native wisdom they were passing on to him.

 

Cox, who now is director of the Institute for Ethnobotany at the

National Tropical Botanical Garden on Kauai, searched for possible

cures for breast cancer in Samoa in the 1980s but instead came upon

a healer's cure for hepatitis that used the mamala tree bark.

 

Later testing by the National Cancer Institute found that

Prostratin, isolated from the mamala bark, had potential as an anti-

AIDS therapy.

 

"Prostratin is Samoa's gift to the world," said Samoan Minister of

Trade Joseph Keil. "We are pleased to accept the University of

California as a full partner in the effort to isolate the Prostratin

genes."

 

Despite Prostratin's promise as an anti-AIDS drug, its supply is

limited since the drug has to be extracted from the mamala tree bark

and stemwood. Researchers in the laboratory of Jay Keasling, UC-

Berkeley professor of chemical engineering, plan to clone the genes

from the tree that naturally produces Prostratin and insert them

into bacteria to make microbial factories for Prostratin.

 

"The best part for me is to see how ancient wisdom from healing

plants has been coupled with cutting-edge technology in a way that

will benefit not only Samoa and UC-Berkeley, but the entire world,"

Cox said in an e-mail from London, where he announced the Samoa

agreement at the Natural History Museum on Thursday, simultaneously

with announcements in Samoa and Berkeley.

 

A previous royalty agreement on Prostratin was signed in 2001 by the

prime minister of Samoa and the AIDS ReSearch Alliance, which is

sponsoring clinical trials of Prostratin as an anti-AIDS therapy.

That agreement would return 20 percent of any commercial profits

arising from the plant-derived compound to the people of Samoa.

 

"This new agreement gives them 50 percent of the profits from the

supply as well as the use side," Cox said.

 

Samoa's 50 percent share is allocated among the government, villages

and the families of healers who first taught Cox how to use the

plant.

 

"This may be the first time that indigenous people have extended

their national sovereignty over a gene sequence," Cox said. "It is

appropriate since the discovery of the antiviral properties of

Prostratin was based on traditional Samoan plant medicine."

--- End forwarded message ---

[Guest guest]

Here is a group, dedicated to Hindu Shastra and Shivambu Chikitsa.

They have a new interpretation of Tantra Sadhana and have identified

The Vedic Soma Pavamana. The Satapatha Brahmana of the Rig Veda

states: "Soma is seed. Soma is urine." Talk about ancient therapies -

This may be the oldest and the most universal. For more info., go to:

http://health.urinetantrasalvation/

 

 

http://health.urinetantrasalvation/

 

 

vediculture, "vrnparker" <vrnparker>

wrote:

>

> MAYBE INDIAN GOVT CAN DO THE SAME BY APPLYING ANCIENT INDIGENOUS

> METHODOLOGIES TOWRDS FINDING A SOLUTION FOR INDIA'S MANY MODERN

> PROBLEMS.

> Samoa endorses use of

> plant to fight AIDS

> It would earn 50% in royalties if

> its plants can fight the ailment

> http://starbulletin.com/2004/10/02/news/story3.html

>