Studies On Biodiversity Of Vietnam And Laos: The UIC-based ICBG Program

Medicinal plants: An important asset to health care in a region of Central Laos

“…In 1976, the Traditional Medicine Research Center (TMRC) was established by the Ministry of Health in order to study and incorporate the use of medicinal plants and Traditional Lao Medicines into current and more modern healthcare systems of Laos. Among its activities, TMRC is involved in ethnobotanical field study, plant collection and identification, and the cataloging of medicinal plants used in various parts of the country, as well as working with pharmaceutical factories in the development of drugs based on traditional Lao medicines (Southavong, 1997;Soejarto et al, 1999Soejarto et al, , 2002.…”

“…Each TMS usually consists of one or more buildings, including a sauna and clinic, which may or may not be associated with a local hospital, or the pharmacy and food division of the Provincial Health Department, and is generally composed of a staff of three to five. The head of each TMS is a college graduate either in the field of Pharmacy or some related medical area, and many TMSs also employ a doctor and or a traditional healer (Soejarto et al, 1999(Soejarto et al, , 2002.…”

Ethnobotany/ethnopharmacology and mass bioprospecting: Issues on intellectual property and benefit-sharing

“…From the experiences gained through the participation in the NCI (Soejarto, 1993;Soejarto et al, 1996), NCDDG (Kinghorn et al, 2003) and ICBG (Soejarto et al, 1999(Soejarto et al, ,b, 2004a,b) bioprospecting projects described above, clearly, such endeavors are a highly complex process. Future mass bioprospecting effort must incorporate lessons learned from these experiences.…”

“…The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC)-based ICBG, known simply as "UIC ICBG" or "Studies on Biodiversity of Vietnam and Laos" (Soejarto et al, 1999(Soejarto et al, ,b, 2004a, serves as a model for the implementation of the ICBG principles, which are, ultimately, the principles of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. In its current Phase II operation (2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008), this ICBG consortium consists of two US-based academic institutions (UIC and Purdue University), two Vietnamese research institutions (Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology; and Cuc Phuong National Park), one Lao research institution (Traditional Medicine Research Center) and an industrial partner (Bristol-Myers Squibb, BMS).…”

Linking bioprospecting with sustainable development and conservation: the Panama case

“…Given that most people in the developing and developed world have a desire to promote biodiversity, it is relevant to ask whether similar efforts could succeed in other countries. Although many barriers exist to such an enterprise, similarly constituted ICBG projects have provided benefits in other developing countries (Kingston et al 1999;Schuster et al 1999;Soejarto et al 1999).…”