San Francisco Chronicle - Friday, October 1, 2004
Kelly St. John, Chronicle Staff Writer

The unusual agreement between UC Berkeley and Samoa -- struck after scientists gave tribal chiefs a PowerPoint presentation on genetic engineering -- promises the country half of any royalties the university might ultimately derive from the genes.

It also supports the island nation's assertion that it has national sovereignty over the gene sequence of prostratin, the drug extracted from the bark of the mamala tree. The anti-viral properties of the bark were well known to the traditional Samoan healers, who first taught American ethnobotanists how to use the plant.

"In the past, a drug company might go in, collect plants, take them with them and not reward the countries," said Jay Keasling, a professor of chemical engineering at UC Berkeley who will lead the cloning effort. "This recognizes the Samoans for their intellectual property and gives them a source of revenue. This really recognizes Samoa's contribution."

Scientists around the world are studying prostratin, saying it has tremendous potential to force the AIDS virus out of hibernation in the body's immune cells, making it possible for other anti-AIDS drugs to kill it. Clinical trials of the drug are expected to begin soon through the AIDS ReSearch Alliance in West Hollywood.

But the supply of prostratin is limited because it must be extracted from the bark of the mamala tree, which grows wild in Samoa and a few other Pacific island nations. Keasling hopes that if the gene can be cloned, researchers can insert it into bacteria that will mass-produce the drug, making it more widely available while protecting Samoa's rain forests from being cut down for its mamala trees.

"Rather than cut down entire forests, we just cut down snippets of the plants and try to recreate those with microbes," he said. "We're saving the biodiversity of the planet at the same time" as fighting HIV-AIDS.

Keasling had to make an unusual pitch to make the deal happen. In August, he traveled with Paul Alan Cox, the American ethnobotanist who first learned about the plant from two traditional healers, to three remote Samoan villages where the tree grows.

There, they gave a PowerPoint lecture on genetic engineering -- projected onto a white sheet hung in an open air village hall -- and asked tribal chiefs to assist them in their work in exchange for a share of the prostratin gene proceeds. Those funds could be used for schools, hospitals and other community improvements.

Although the vast majority of villagers had never heard of UC Berkeley, the chiefs agreed. The agreement was then formally signed by Prime Minister Tuila'epa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi of Samoa and UC Berkeley's vice chancellor for research, Beth Burnside.

"Prostratin is Samoa's gift to the world," said Hans Joseph Keil, Samoa's minister of trade and tourism. "We are pleased to accept the University of California as a full partner in the effort to isolate the prostratin genes."

Samoa will receive 50 percent of any royalties, with the money being divvied up between the government, the villages and the families of two traditional healers who taught Cox how to use the plant.

UC Berkeley and Samoa also agreed that if Keasling succeeded in developing a process to manufacture the drug, UC Berkeley would search for a pharmaceutical company that promises to distribute it at low or no cost in developing nations hit hard by the AIDS epidemic.

"This may be the first time that indigenous people have extended their national sovereignty over a gene sequence," said Cox, director of the Institute for Ethnobotany at the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Hawaii.

"What excites me about this agreement is it basically argues that the knowledge of these ancient healers is equal to the best genetic engineering that the university can muster."

Cox said that he had gone to Samoa in 1984 after his mother died of breast cancer, in hopes of finding natural treatments for that disease. There, he met two traditional healers -- elderly women in their 70s -- who showed him how to make tea from the mamala plant to heal hepatitis, or what they called "yellowing fever," he said.

Cox sent a sample of the plant to the National Cancer Institute, where scientists eventually uncovered its anti-HIV promise and patented its use in 1997.

After he clones the genes, Keasling said, he will insert them into a strain of E. coli bacteria that act like minifactories. He has already used that process to produce precursors of the anti-malarial drug artemisinin, which he hopes to produce inexpensively for people in the developing world.

E-mail Kelly St. John at kstjohn@sfchronicle.com.
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