Chemist wins Australian award for asthma drug research

By Dewi Anggraeni

MELBOURNE (JP): "Nature is a good chemist," said Walter Taylor, winner of Asialink's Sir Edward Dunlop Asia Medal 1997.

The professor received the medal on Nov. 11 here after Prime Minister John Howard had announced his name at the annual major Asialink Lecture.

"It's so beautiful. More like a plaque than a medal," the happy Taylor commented.

In his work developing organic chemistry, the 67-year-old has brought together traditional herbal medicine and conventional Western pharmacology.

He sees products derived from nature as vehicles in developing science and new drugs.

Taylor has been committed for 30 years to the development of organic chemistry in Asia, one of the homes of medicinal herbal extracts.

He was nominated by a colleague at the Organic Chemistry Department of Sydney University, S. Sternhell.

Selection criteria used by the members of the Sir Edward Dunlop Asia Awards Trust Advisory Committee included a "career- spanning commitment to a vocation, profession or community service which has enhanced quality of life, peace or prosperity for a community or communities in the Asian region".

Taylor was selected over 30 other nominees.

He travels to various countries in the region, including Indonesia, where he assists and collaborates with scientists.

In Indonesia, his collaboration with Dayar Arbain of Andalas University in Padang, West Sumatra, has succeeded in isolating and proving the structure of alkaloids in a West Sumatran plant called the bonai.

The plant, he says, grows wild in the area, and has been used by locals to cure children's ailments such as headaches, measles and chicken pox, and the odd case of malaria.

He has also worked with Syamsul Arifin Ahmad in Bandung.

Taylor also supports scientists in Thailand, Nepal, Vietnam, Burma and Bhutan, by providing them with items, data, literature and analysis of molecular structure using sophisticated equipment in Australia.

Taylor's recent research has isolated a plant in Thailand, called hanuman prasarn guy, or oy chang, as a potential medicine to treat asthma.

Royalty

Medication for asthma sufferers has been palliative in nature, as a real cure for it has not been discovered.

Taylor believes his hanuman prasarn guy research will also produce a palliative drug, but because it is derived from a plant that grows in abundance, it will be more accessible to people in the region.

The research itself is undertaken together with a Thai doctoral student, who will take the results back to Thailand for the benefit of the local people.

Researchers are now more aware of copyright issues -- "If the resultant drug is marketed internationally in the future, there will have to be proper contract agreements and royalty payable (to the locals from where the research material originated," said Taylor without hesitation.

It is a common shrub which the local people drink in the form of tea to reduce symptoms of asthma.

Taylor discovered two major compounds of saponin from the plant, which have proven to have an broncho-dilatory effect on asthma sufferers, relaxing the breathing systems.

By extracting the compounds in a purer form, Taylor hopes there would be a better relieving capacity.

Before the compounds can be tested on humans, they have to be subjected to stringent toxicology tests.

Taylor believes in the medicinal properties of herbal extracts, but he says they need more research in order to guarantee their purity and maximize their capacity.

In Indonesia, he said that if manufacturers of jamu herbal medicine were more inclined to channel some of their profits to the universities, this would encourage and assist scientific research on their products, and maximize the efficacy of their product.

Despite his commitments and achievements, Taylor has difficulty attracting research funds.

His requests to AusAID for assistance invariably drew a blank. "Research funds tend to go to big but short-term projects, while medicinal projects are more long-term," he explains.

In the 1960s research on medicinal herbal extracts was more fashionable. Ironically, now when it is technically easier with the sophisticated equipment available, the research is no longer in. That does not mean Taylor stops or gives up.

He has accumulated private research funds and works practically on his own in his research laboratory at Sydney University.

He received support from UNESCO and he was the Australian representative of the UNESCO Network.

Using his own funds, he continues working on his hanuman prasarn guy research. He travels to Thailand and brings extracts back to Sydney.

His first contact with Asia goes back to the 1960s, when he taught some Thai students who came to Australia on the Colombo Plan. After graduation, they invited Taylor to Thailand to have a look at their work. He has not looked back since.

"It has widened my experience, scientifically and otherwise, and I have developed a whole new life with my Asian work," said this energetic scientist who still enjoys windsurfing.

His writings in professional journals include a recent one on his research related to an anticancer drug in Katmandu, published in the Chicago-based Journal of Natural Products.

Taylor may not receive research grants nowadays, but he definitely has not receded into anonymity.

The Sir Edward Dunlop Asia Medal is proof of recognition from the community and Asialink, a high profile organization working toward building good relations between Australia and its Asian neighbors.