Not with cancer, obviously, or a) cancer would be cured and b) we wouldn’t keep saying it.
The thread title is commonly used an excuse for conservation of ecosystems, species, and so forth: that somewhere in some unexplored or inadequately researched part of the world we might find some naturally-occuring whatsitz that would cure some terrible disease. Wouldn’t it be better to look in the same neck of the woods that the disease came from rather than halfway around the planet?
Sure, there’s the bread mold discovery — penicillin — but have any important medical discoveries ever been made by finding something remote and out-of-the-way in the spirit of the thread title?
And willow trees and the Pacific yew are remote and out-of-the-way?
The question was not “can pharmaceuticals be found in nature.” What I’m getting at is that we have discovered things that have been around and under scrutiny for thousands of years; have we ever just walked into a remote jungle and tripped over ‘Cure for XYZ’?
The idea that miracle cures may be found in unexplored locations sounds more like an article of faith, or an extrapolation of existing discoveries, rather than being from any actual, you know, examples.
I don’t know about the Pacific Yew tree, but it’s been known for about a bazillion years that willow tree bark could help relieve a headache. That’s not really what the OP is asking for.
Well, until very recently from a historical standpoint, the Pacific Yew * was * in a remote part of the globe. And it’s properties were discovered in the 60’s. So, yes, extrapolating from that, if you go to the area with the largest biodiversity on the planet, you might expect to find more useful substances.
(A derivate of curare, from those same tropical rainforests is widely used in surgery.)
Dunno about the relevance of the Pacific yew, given that it took roughly 160 years for a discovery to be made.
Maybe I’m coming at this from the wrong direction. When did we first begin seeing the notion of “save the rain forests, because we might find the cure for cancer in there” and what gave rise to the saying: extrapolation from estimates of biodiversity, wishful thinking, or a concrete example?
Given the incredible array of diversity in nature and the means other organisms have for dealing with bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other pathogens - and even the random compounds that don’t function in nature to deal with pathogens, but that we can still put to some use, it’s perfectly reasonable to suggest that we should check these places out before they’re all gone.
The notion of Ecosystem services has been around for a very long time, and could arguably predate writing in many societies which have traditions to protect functions of ecosystems beneficial to man.
The early American conservation movement, Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir, alluded to the idea also.
It has only been called “ecosystem services” and subject to systematic calculation of benefits for a couple decades, though. I first encountered the term in the mid-1990s, but it’s probably been in the literature for longer than that.
Check my location; it is where I live. It has also been inhabited for thousands of years, though not by Europeans.
What makes you think I said this? In reference to willow bark and bread mold, those have been within the realm of human experience (though not actively studied with modern chemistry — as for that, not much has) for thousands of years.
I will take a look at the examples you provide, although I am curious which one(s) of them gave rise to the fairly recent popular saying re: saving-ecology = cure-for-cancer.
… and even then, the Pacific NW was still out-of-the-way.
Post #4 in this thread sounded like you were dissatisfied with the taxol/Pacific Yew example. At least, as much as a post can “sound” like anything - that’s why I use these so much. With the exception of Antarctica, every place on the planet has been inhabited by humans for thousands of years, so if you discount every example where people have lived (regardless of whether they used the substance turned into a pharmaceutical in modern times), you won’t find many examples.
I don’t think any of them gave rise to the recent saying. Your post at 06:35 pm wasn’t there when I wrote, so I was addressing the OP about cures/treatments (I’m not sure what qualifies as a “miracle” ;j ) found in remote ecosystems.
I’m currently taking a new diabetic “wonder drug” (Byetta) that was originally derived from an enzyme found in the saliva of the gila monster. This drug is literally saving my life.
There’s also a cardiovascular drug that’s derived from the saliva of leeches.
So if you encounter something salivating in the rain forest, or any other ecosystem, don’t automatically write it off as useless.
There are tons of drugs derived from plant sources. For example: Warfarin , anticoagulant, from sweet clover. Curare, anaesthetic, also from a couple of plants.
Many antibiotics (Penicillin, Streptomycin, Actinomycin) were found by studying yeasts, molds, and bacteria, because these bugs have been fighting each other for years and have evolved specialized chemical warfare to do it.
Most drugs today are synthetic concoctions, but they’re usually based on a natural compound and tweaked for efficiency and specificity. Destroy plants that nobody’s had a chance to look at yet, and you may lose potential new drugs, although there are plenty of other reasons against clearcutting the Amazon.
Pacific Yew is an extremely slow growing tree and it produces very little taxol. Apparently it takes 6 100-year old trees to provide enough taxol to treat just one patient.
It is the incredible synthetic routes developed by Nicoloau and more recently Danishefsky that allow access to taxol, and avoid destruction of the pacific yew.
so much. With the exception of Antarctica, every place on the planet has been inhabited by humans for thousands of years, so if you discount every example where people have lived (regardless of whether they used the substance turned into a pharmaceutical in modern times), you won’t find many examples.