LIPI spurs medicinal organisms' research
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) has launched two databases concerning the country's medicinal organisms and their chemical structure in order to attract industry and the private sector to work with researchers in discovering and producing modern medicines.
Although the country has resources and researchers with good potential, the results of the research are still "kept safely in the drawer," LIPI's deputy of biological sciences Endang Sukara stated on Monday at the sidelines of a discussion on the discovery of natural drug products held before the actual launch.
"The dissemination of information about the results of the research is important to raise the awareness of industry and the private sector when carrying out research and development, to discover better cures through mutual collaboration," he said.
In an effort to facilitate access to the research, LIPI has set up a website about natural products having a bioactive origin, as well as pharmaceutical research data established at the institution's Research and Development Center for Applied Chemistry (RDCAC-LIPI).
The data provided at http://www.bimaps.lipi.go.id is mainly from research into Indonesian medicinal plants, due to less intensive research being carried out on bioactive material from the country's marine organisms, microbiological and animal resources.
The website, consisting of documents on more than 3,000 plants, is expected to help with data on the discovery of natural drug products, their standardization and potential market. For the first phase, it consists of 800 entries that will be added to each month.
The website http://www.bichems.lipi.go.id provides 8,000 entries on the chemical structure of bioactive plant molecules and marine organisms found in nature.
A speaker in the discussion, Setijati D. Sastrapradja from Naturae Indonesiana (Naturindo), said that Indonesia should take advantage of this good bargaining chip in collaborating with developed countries that have the technology and capital.
"We already have law on genetic resources and we have the raw materials. But, can we compete with developed countries scientifically? Those holding the technology are the private and industrial sectors.
"Therefore, to facilitate the involvement of the private sector in the field of access to and transfer of technology, it is expected that the law will deal with such an issue," she said.
Setijati, who is a LIPI's senior researcher, added that the legislation should recognize the importance of patent and other intellectual property rights, as stipulated in the international Convention on Biological Diversity.
The Indonesian rainforest is a haven for medicinal plants and LIPI has successfully cooperated with the U.S. University of Illinois Program for Collaborative Research In the Pharmaceutical Sciences (PCRPS) in drug discovery and sustaining resources.
John M. Pezzuto from the university revealed in the discussion that from 3,000 species, the team had found about eight compounds that are likely to be effective as anticarcinogens.
His colleague Harry Fong, meanwhile, said that similar research into forests in Vietnam and Laos has found extracts effective in curing infectious diseases, such as malaria and tuberculosis, and in helping to prevent Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV).
He also revealed that in this kind of collaboration royalties are shared, whereby some 50 percent to 62 percent of them go to the host country, from where the genetic materials have been obtained. (bby)