Cancer cures in the Amazon?

In Amazon, a frustrated search for cancer cures
By Stuart Grudgings Stuart Grudgings Tue Nov 17, 2:11 pm ET

SAO SEBASTIAO DE CUIEIRAS, Brazil (Reuters) – The task of harvesting the secrets of Brazil's vast Amazon rain forest that could help in the battle against cancer largely falls to Osmar Barbosa Ferreira and a big pair of clippers.

In jungle so dense it all but blocks out the sun, the lithe 46-year-old shimmies up a thin tree helped by a harness, a strap between his feet, and the expertise gained from a lifetime laboring in the forest.

A few well-placed snips later, branches cascade to a small band of researchers and a doctor who faithfully make a long monthly trip to the Cuieiras river in Amazonas state in the belief that the forest's staggeringly rich plant life can unlock new treatments for cancer.

They may be right.

About 70 percent of current cancer drugs are either natural products or derived from natural compounds, and the world's largest rain forest is a great cauldron of biodiversity that has already produced medicine for diseases such as malaria.

But finding the right material is no easy task in a forest that can have up to 400 species of trees and many more plants in a 2.5-acre (1-hectare) area, and in a country where suspicion of outside involvement in the Amazon runs strong.

"If we had very clear rules, we could attract scientists from all over the world," said the doctor, Drauzio Varella, with a mix of enthusiasm and frustration. "We could transform a big part of the Amazon into an enormous laboratory."

As it stands, though, foreigners are barred from helping oncologist Varella and the researchers from Sao Paulo's Paulista University, who are among a tiny handful of Brazilian groups licensed to study samples from the Amazon.

Varella, 66, believes his high profile has helped. He is a well-known writer and television personality who shot to fame in 1999 with a book and subsequent hit movie based on his work as a doctor in a brutal Sao Paulo prison called Carandiru.

But a move by his team in the 1990s to partner with the U.S. National Cancer Institute produced a storm of accusations of "bio-piracy" and for years it has been blocked from the international cooperation and funding that could increase the chances of finding the Holy Grail of a cancer cure.

Their work has also been regularly delayed by bureaucratic demands, once stopping their collections for two years.

In more than a decade of searching, the group has brought back 2,200 samples from this tributary of the mighty, tea-dark Rio Negro (Black River) to its laboratory in Sao Paulo, of which about 70 have shown some effect against tumors. Just those samples have given the team enough analysis work for 20 years, said Varella, a lanky marathon runner whose younger brother died of cancer.

"If we can find 70, imagine what a big university with international resources could do -- they could screen for an absurd amount of diseases," said Varella, who still spends part of his time treating prisoners in Sao Paulo.

"As well as the impact this could have on human health, it could bring resources for preservation and to improve the quality of life of people who live here."

Ironically, it was a foreigner who inspired Varella to begin his search. Robert Gallo, a U.S. researcher and leading AIDS expert who co-discovered the HIV virus, asked Varella during a trip to the Amazon in the early 1990s if anyone was researching the medical potential of the forest.

JIGSAW PUZZLE

Among the natural products being used to fight cancer today is Taxol, a chemotherapy drug that comes from the bark of the Pacific yew tree.

David Newman, head of the Natural Products Branch of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, said several promising cancer drugs derived from natural sources as varied as a deep-water sponges and microbes are currently going through clinical trials. Often the natural compounds are tweaked or mimicked to better fight cancer cells.

"It's a detective story and a jigsaw puzzle, but you don't know how many pieces there are or what the picture looks like," he said. "In one teaspoon of soil from the Amazon, you find over a thousand microbes that have never been isolated."

Out of an estimated 80,000 species of flower-bearing plants in the Amazon, only about a fifth have been identified.

Newman said progress in Brazil has been greatly hampered by the inability of companies to patent a natural product under legislation passed in the 1990s, leaving no incentive to invest in research.

He cited the example of a Brazilian viper snake whose venom proved vital to the development of blood pressure drug captopril in the 1970s, a find that might not have happened under today's laws.

Further analysis of the promising compounds found by Varella's team has been held up while the university waits for access to a nuclear-magnetic resonance machine that can isolate the active elements.

"We're still a long way from discovering an actual medicine that could cure a type of cancer but we have strong signs that some plants have substances that inhibit the growth of tumors," said Mateus Paciencia, a bearded 34-year-old botanist.

Their main hope is that growing concern over the environment and increasing government efforts to slow the destruction of the Amazon by ranchers and loggers will turn the tide in favor of sustainable forest industries, of which they say their work is a prime example.

"There is nothing more sustainable than this," said Paciencia. "We take a kilogram worth of samples from a tree that weighs a ton and get an extract that lasts 10 years."

As he hung from a tree trunk, Ferreira said his relationship with the forest had been transformed by his job. He used to cut down trees with a chainsaw and sell the lumber in the city of Manaus, about 80 km (50 miles) down river from the research site.

"I think we'll find a medicine, and it won't take too long," he said. "If I deforest, I'm killing not just one plant but destroying a lot of other plants as well. So the job we're doing here is much better."

More Republican Meddling in the NIH Grant Process

From Drugmonkey

.... Reps Joe Barton (R; TX) and Greg Walden (R; OR) who are asking the new NIH director, Francis Collins, to come clean about a list of grants.

With that in mind, Barton and Walden are puzzled by some of the grants that were approved: "Impact of Dragon Boat Racing on Cancer Survivorship"; "Substance Use and HIV Risk Among Thai Women"; "The Healing of the Canoe"; "Patterns of Drug Use and Abuse in the Brazilian Rave Culture".

"We do not doubt that there may be some degree of scientific benefit to be gained from these studies," Barton and Walden wrote. "However, given the number of urgent public health issues facing the NIH, such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and pandemic disease, we question how peer review panels determined these projects to have 'high scientific caliber' and how they are particularly relevant to the NIH Institute and Center research priorities."

It is the usual blowhard posturing.

The full letter is linked here as a pdf. Let me quote the complaint:

..........

They insist on a detailed explanation of the merit and review of 12 specific funded grant projects (including the three which bothered Rep Issa, btw).

Six of these projects are directed at HIV/AIDS. I kid you not. In some areas of the world HIV/AIDS is a pandemic disease, lab partners! What do they want, funding for theoretical, feared pandemics like SARS and swine flu? HIV is totally and completely relevant to the mission of the NIH and we know this because of the Congressional mandate about HIV/AIDS funding! A seventh study (1G13LM009601-01A1) has, right in the abstract, the observation that "The study also examines how health campaigns contributed to the elimination and reduction of epidemic diseases". I am not making this up, I swear.

Two studies have to do with cancer- one on exercise helping with survivorship / quality of life and one to do with soy-bread as a complimentary therapy. I can tell right from this that there is some potential for health-relevant positive outcome (even if it is debunking soy-bread)...and that these CongressCritters don't have the expertise to judge the merit. But still, these guys listed cancer as one of their approved health concerns...so what gives?

Three projects are on substance use and four of the HIV/AIDS ones focus on substance abuse issues in the context of HIV/AIDS as well. Perhaps not a pandemic but a serious public health issue, as my Readers are aware. This is why we have both NIDA and NIAAA, my friends-are you planning to defund whole Institutes next? Because that would make more sense than picking on a handful of projects under the guise of more deserving "urgent public health issues"...

In short, these clowns have no genuine concern with health relevance or the NIH mission of various ICs or quality science that I can detect. Because they select grants that hit on the very "relevance" topics that they cite, ones that fit obviously and clearly within general NIH IC mandates and also with specific add-ons from Congress (when it comes to HIV/AIDS). The only issues that seem to coherently link the selected projects are deduced from the observation that these Congressmen apparently don't like studies on HIV, drugs of abuse and especially non-white and/or foreign populations. This sounds like a social conservative political, rather than a scientific or even a good stewardship-of-public-funds, agenda to me.

Finally there is a structural angle to the posturing which makes me wonder if they are even remotely serious about this. They list three R03's and two R21's in their final year of funding by year-code! What possible impact is there of demanding that the NIH Director tell them how these grants got approved?? There is no time to halt the projects. And they know this...don't they? Are CongressCritters really so dense as to specifically go after the final year of a non-renewable (and dinky) award? Or are they doing it with cynicism knowing they can't possibly make real steps to defund the project?

Ok, Ok, so this is only an effort to question the NIH about their practices. Not one of those Toomey/Issa style efforts to actually amend the budget or anything. But still, this is ridiculous. At best it is cynical science-bashing to play to the social-conservative base. At worst, they really do mean to put Congressional fingers right into the grant evaluation process and decide funding based on politics, rather than science.

Barton and Walden feature in Hypocrisy Hall of Fame

House Republicans Hypocrisy Hall of Fame

Posted by DCCC Press

The DCCC has unveiled the latest entries into the House Republicans Hypocrisy Hall of Fame, which has now grown to 67 Members. These Republicans have been caught trying to celebrate the benefits of projects they opposed in President Obama's recovery bill, the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations bill, and the Omnibus Public Land Management Act.

"With the economy showing early signs of recovery, it's no wonder that more and more House Republicans are scrambling to take credit for the benefits they opposed," said Ryan Rudominer, National Press Secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "Times are tough. Hardworking Americans need solutions, not more hypocrisy from the Republican Party of No."

Representative Greg Walden (OR-02) - "I figure my job is to try and do whatever I can to clear the hurdles and get the projects going and the people back to work using these funds." [Mail Tribune; 2/19/09]

Representative Joe Barton (TX-06) - Representative Joe Barton showed his hypocrisy after asking the Obama Administration for three billion in funds for NASA from the economic recovery act, which he voted against. Members of the Texas delegation signed the letter, including two Republican Senators and 19 House Republicans who all voted against the recovery act in February. [Texas delegation wants stimulus money for NASA, Houston Chronicle, 10/5/09]


-----------------

TX-06: Barton’s Gravy Train
Share

Posted by Brandon English
Jan 20, 2006

There’s one man who does not count on Tom DeLay for oil industry connections.

Anna says…

MMmmmmm…. I love the smell of corruption in the morning! Congressman Joe Barton embarks today on what his re-election staff has dubbed “Joe Barton’s 2006 Texas Train Ride”. We prefer to call it what it is: a Gravy Train.

For the low, low price of $2000, individual donors can hobnob with Chairman Barton (as the invitation flyer emphasises) for several hours. Entertainment includes a Saturday brunch, an “after hours tour of the Alamo”, “cocktails”, and an old GOP favorite: gambling (quick, someone call Jack Ambramoff!). The invitation promises that “During the ride, we’ll have lots of time to talk”. Even better, if you’re a PAC representative, all this access can be yours for the bargain bin price of $5000.

Joe Barton on climate
Joe Baron Blocks Generic Medicines
Joe Barton on Gas Prices