Biodiscovery

As a Federation, law making powers in Australia are divided between the Commonwealth Government and the State and Territory Governments. While the Commonwealth Government has the power to enter into international treaties, the Commonwealth only has power to pass biodiscovery laws in relation to Commonwealth land and waters (that only make up a small part of Australia). It is up to the State and Territory Governments to pass laws for their respective territories. As a result, biodiscovery practices in Australia are controlled by a combination of Commonwealth laws (for Commonwealth areas) and State or Territory laws (for their respective land and waters).
There are a number of problems with the schemes designed to regulate the collection, use and reuse of native biological resources in Australia. While Australia ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1993, only the Commonwealth (2000), Queensland (2004) and the Northern Territory (2006) have enacted biodiscovery laws. None of the other five States or the one remaining mainland Territory have passed biodiscovery laws. Moreover, while the Commonwealth and Northern Territory schemes apply to all areas that could potentially be covered within their jurisdictions, the Queensland scheme is limited to State land and waters: it does not apply to private or aboriginal lands. As a result, there are many parts of Australia that are not covered by biodiscovery laws. Another problem with the existing schemes is that they have been under-resourced. When combined with a high turnover of administrative staff and (sometimes) unrealistic expectations on the part of access providers about the benefits that they are entitled to, this has undermined the uptake and effectiveness of the biodiscovery schemes. These problems create a perverse situation whereby biopirates are able to avoid the remit of the biodiscovery laws by collecting (or claiming to collect) on areas not covered by relevant laws. At the same time, parties who want to conduct ethical biodiscovery work are forced to deal with schemes that are often cumbersome, inconsistent and under-resourced.

Abstract
BACKGROUND:
The medicinal plants and the associated Bhutanese traditional medicine (BTM) are protected by the country's constitution and receive both government support and acceptance by the wider public. More than 1000 medicinal plants are described in the BTM but currently collects only 300 species for daily formulations of BTM. These medicinal plants have been one of the drivers of the 'Gross National Happiness (GNH)' and biodiscovery projects in Bhutan. However, no review covering the systematic evaluations of the contributions of medicinal plants and the BTM to the GNH and biodiscovery exist till date.
METHODS:
This paper, therefore addresses this information gap. It is based on the review of the existing traditional and scientific literature, government websites and policy documents. The descriptions and discussions of the paper is straightened, authenticated and enhanced by the data collected through the informal discussions with the BTM practitioners and also through the authors' many years of practical observations of the impact of the medicinal plants programs and the BTM practices in Bhutan.
RESULTS:
This paper found the following: a) the medicinal plants generates income to the farmers elevating their living standard and the economic status, b) it serves as the bulk ingredients of the BTM facilitating the provision of free traditional health care services to the patients, c) helps the conservation of medicinal plants and their pristine environment through recognition of their spiritual, social and economic values, d) preserves the rich BTM cultural heritage, and e) guides the biodiscovery projects based on their ethnobotanical information. The paper also identified the challenges and research gaps, and recommends appropriate strategies that can help secure the sustainable future of the medicinal plants, the BTM and the biodiscovery projects.
CONCLUSIONS:
The medicinal plants play significant role in the country's biodiscovery projects and the internationally renowned development policy of 'Gross National Happiness'

Thermophilic microbes are present everywhere around us and their only known natural biotope is far away and most usually associated with geothermal energy. To answer this paradox, we explore the hypothesis that the phyllosphere (surface of leaves), due to its exposition to the sun, could well be a thermophilic habitat for microbes and thus a source of thermophilic microbes growing around 50°C – 60°C. To support this hypothesis, we reviewed the heat sources on earth and associated microbial habitats, as well as the difficult identification of thermophilic microbes. We further present an experiment to show the presence and activity of thermophilic bacteria in the phyllosphere. Leaves were collected from eleven tree species from five locations on three continents belonging to three different biomes. On fresh leaves, 16S rDNA sequencing reveals the presence of 0.2 to 7% of clearly identified thermophilic bacteria. Moreover, after incubation at 55°C under aerobic and anaerobic conditions...

Schistosomiasis and trichuriasis are two of the most common neglected tropical diseases (NTD) that affect almost a billion people worldwide. There is only a limited number of effective drugs to combat these NTD. Medicinal plants are a viable source of parasiticides. In this study, we have investigated six of the 19 phytochemicals isolated from two Bhutanese medicinal plants, Corydalis crispa and Pleurospermum amabile, for their anthelmintic properties. We used the xWORM technique and Scanning Electron Microscope-based imaging to determine the activity of the compounds. Of the six compounds tested, isomyristicin and bergapten showed significant anthelmintic activity against Schistosoma mansoni and Trichuris muris with bergapten being the most efficacious compound one against both parasites (S. mansoni IC 50 = 8.6 μg/mL and T. muris IC 50 = 10.6 μg/mL) and also against the schistosomulum stage of S. mansoni. These two compounds induced tegumental damage to S. mansoni and affected the cuticle, bacillary bands and bacillary glands of T. muris. The efficacy against multiple phylogenetically distinct parasites and different life stages, especially the schistosomulum where praziquantel is ineffective, makes isomyristicin and bergapten novel scaffolds for broad-spectrum anthelmintic drug development that could be used for the control of helminths infecting humans and animals. Schistosomiasis and trichuriasis are major contributors to the disease burden in both humans and domestic animals , affecting the social and economic progress of many developing countries 1–3. There are no vaccines, and only a handful of anthelmintic drugs exist to treat these infections. The development of drug-resistant helminths of livestock has been reported, and there is a looming threat of resistance for the few human drugs that are currently used in mass drug administration programs in developing countries 4–6. This has necessitated the discovery of lead compounds and development of new anthelmintic drugs. Natural products, especially medicinal plants, have a bewildering diversity of allelochemicals with unusual structures and have been a reliable source of chemotherapeutic moieties 7 , including for anthelmintic drug discovery. For example, artemisinin and its derivatives (artemether) isolated from the Chinese medicinal plant, Artemesia annua, have a unique trioxane structure that is an essential frontline antimalarial drug which also has anti-schistosome and anti-cancer properties 8–9. Another new antimalarial drug lead candidate, simplicifolianine, has been discovered from Meconopsis simplicifolia 10. Despite their proven reputation as a source of antimalar-ials, plants have been relatively under-explored as a source of anthelmintic compounds. Athanasiadou et al. 11 described a number of plants with anthelmintic properties under controlled experimentation, either through feeding of whole plant or plant extracts to parasitised hosts. While some plant extracts have strong bioactivi-ties, even against drug-resistant worms, the use of crude extracts is fraught with complexity in terms of dose standardisation and mechanism of drug action. Crude plant extracts contain mixtures of allelochemicals, which may have synergistic, antagonistic or even superimposed bioactivities. For this reason, isolating, quantifying and identifying the bioactive compounds in plant extracts is a prerequisite for drug discovery and will accelerate the development of new generations of anthelmintic compounds. Drawing inspiration from Bhutanese traditional medicine (BTM) we explored the anthelmintic properties of two medicinal plants – Corydalis crispa and Pleurospermum amabile, against S. mansoni and T. muris. These

Sowarigpa medicine plays significant role in the Bhutanese health care system. It was integrated with the mainstream health care system in 1967. There are traditional hospitals built alongside the modern hospitals and this enables cross-referral of patients between the modern and traditional health care system. It has three lessons to be learnt from the Bhutanese policy of health care system: a) managerial lesson of integrating two different medical system, b) providing health care choices to the patients and having holistic medical view, c) rich herbal traditions has huge potential for biodiscovery programs.

From Roscovitine to CYC202 to Seliciclib – from bench to bedside: discovery and development Nikolai Zhelev, Dimitar Trifonov, Shudong Wang, Moustapha Hassan, Ibrahim El Serafi,Vanio Mitev 1 School of Science, Engineering & Technology, University of Abertay Dundee, Bell Street, Dundee,UK, DD1 1HG 2 Division of Health Sciences, School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia 3 Experimental Cancer Medicine (ECM), Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden 4 Clinical Research Centrum, Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge, Stockholm, Sweden 5 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Medical University of Sofia, 1431 Sofia, Bulgaria

The clinical course of B-CLL is heterogeneous. This heterogeneity leads to a clinical dilemma: can we identify those patients who will benefit from early treatment and predict the survival? In recent years, mathematical modelling has contributed significantly in understanding the complexity of diseases. In order to build a mathematical model for determining prognosis of B-CLL one has to identify, characterise and quantify key molecules involved in the disease. Here we discuss the need and role of mathematical modelling in predicting B-CLL disease pathogenesis and suggest a new systems biology approach for a personalised therapy of B-CLL patients.