International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups (ICBG)                                  

Updated April 2004

Table of Contents
Introduction
Background and History
Goals
Program Structure
Comprehensive ICBG Awards
ICBG Planning Grants
Continuing ICBGs
Press Release, December 16, 2003
ICBG Archive
Additional Reading
Contact Information
Additional Information


Re-competition of the ICBG Program in 2002-2003
RFA TW-03-004 (Request for Applications)
Link to diagram referred to in RFA
Frequently Asked Questions
Resources on Access, Intellectual Property and Benefit-Sharing Relevant to the ICBG program
Private Sector Entities That May Be Interested In Natural Products Research
2002 Program Review Report

Introduction

The International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups (ICBG) Program is a unique effort that addresses the interdependent issues of drug discovery, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable economic growth. Funding for this program has been provided by six components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Biological Sciences Directorate of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Foreign Agriculture Service of the USDA. The cooperating NIH components are the Fogarty International Center (FIC), National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

Efforts to examine the medicinal potential of the earth's plants, animals and microorganisms are urgently needed, since enduring habitat destruction and the resulting diminishment of biodiversity will make it increasingly difficult to do so in the future. 40-50% of currently used drugs have an origin in natural products. The FIC-managed Biodiversity Program is designed to guide natural products drug discovery in such a way that local communities and other source country organizations can derive direct benefits from their diverse biological resources. Benefit-sharing may provide clear incentives for preservation and sustainable use of that biodiversity. 

For the current five year cycle of the ICBG program, six awards of approximately $500,000 to $600,000 per year were made in 1998. Total inter-agency funding for the program in FY 01 was $4.0 million, of which $2.2 million derives from FIC appropriations. The ICBGs are currently working in ten countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia, building research capacity in more than 20 different institutions and training hundreds of individuals. To date, thousands of species of plants, animals, and fungi have been collected to examine biological activity in 19 different therapeutic areas. Numerous publications in chemistry, biodiversity policy, conservation and ethnobiology have emerged from the funded investigators. Broad public attention to the program and its timing relative to international developments associated with the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity have allowed the ICBG program to offer useful working models for national and international policy discussions related to biodiversity conservation incentive measures, technology transfer, intellectual property and benefit-sharing.

Y. Seo et al. 2002 

Background and History

The conceptual basis for the ICBG program was developed during a conference in March of 1991 sponsored by the NIH, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The conference focused on the potential relationships between drug development, biological diversity and economic growth (Schweitzer et al. 1991). The International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups (ICBG) program was initiated in 1992 in a collaborative effort of NIH, NSF and USAID to advance their three interrelated goals (RFA TW-92-01).

Five multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional awards were made in 1993 and 1994. A panel of experts evaluated the progress of this experimental effort in 1997. Their Final Report on the International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups offers important insights into the progress of the program and its challenges for the future. The program was re-competed in 1998 RFA TW-98-001 and six ICBGs were awarded at that time. (please note that a new RFA has been issued with several modifications) Five of these are currently active.

Goals

The ICBG program is a unique effort to integrate improvement of human health through drug discovery, incentives for conservation of biodiversity, and new models of sustainable economic activity that focus on the environment, health, equity and democracy. This program is based on the belief that the discovery and development of pharmaceutical and other useful agents from natural products can, under appropriate circumstances, promote scientific capacity development and economic incentives to conserve the biological resources from which these products are derived.

Projects include acquisition and analysis of natural products derived from biological diversity as potential therapeutic agents for diseases of concern to both developed and developing countries. The diseases of concern include AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, cancers, heart disease, drug addiction and central nervous system disorders, including Alzheimer's disease. Other important components include discovery of safe new agents for crop protection and veterinary medicines. The projects also include efforts to carry out biodiversity inventories and surveys, examine and preserve traditional medicine practices, to develop long-term strategies to ensure sustainable harvesting, to promote training and infrastructure support for host-country institutions and long-term funding for biodiversity conservation in the host countries.

Program Structure

The ICBG awards were selected from 22 applicants by a multi-disciplinary peer review panel composed of highly qualified scientists. Groups are linked by a series of research and benefit-sharing agreements that were formed by the investigators to address a set of operational and intellectual property principles outlined in the ICBG Request for Applications RFA TW-98-001 (please note that a new RFA has been issued with several modifications). To facilitate activities of these complex groups each ICBG has a government committee of scientific advisors, together representing expertise from each of the funding agencies. The program director from FIC interprets policy and program issues and manages funding. Together these scientists and other representatives from the funding agencies (NSF, USDA, FIC, NCI, NIMH, NIDA, NIAID and NHLBI) make up the Technical Advisory Group to the program as a whole.

Comprehensive ICBG Awards

Five International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups, consisting of diverse public and private institutions including universities, environmental organizations and pharmaceutical companies in 10 countries, are currently collaborating on multi-disciplinary projects toward the goals outlined above.   

Currently active ICBGs and their investigators are:

BIOASSAY AND ECOLOGY DIRECTED DRUG DISCOVERY IN PANAMA

Dr. William H. Gerwick, in collaboration with Dr. Phyllis D. Coley and colleagues at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, building on a previous five-year ICBG award, are using ecological insight to build a sustainable bioprospecting program in Panama for discovery of both pharmaceutical and agricultural products from plants and marine algae in collaboration with Oregon State University, Panama’s National Secretariat for Science, Technology, and Innovation, the Nature Foundation of Panama, the University of Panama, Novartis Oncology, and Dow Agrosciences.

BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION AND DRUG DISCOVERY IN MADAGASCAR

Dr. David G.I. Kingston of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, is collaborating in a third five-year ICBG to study tropical plants and marine organisms in Madagascar. The group includes Missouri Botanical Garden, Conservation International, the Madagascar National Centers for Pharmaceutical Research, for Environmental Research and for Oceanographic Research, as well as Eisai Pharmaceutical Research Institute and Dow Agrosciences.

BIODIVERSITY OF VIETNAM AND LAOS

Dr. Djaja (Doel) Soejarto and colleagues from the University of Illinois at Chicago are leading a second five year ICBG to integrate studies on biodiversity and the discovery of pharmacological agents for AIDS, cancer, malaria and tuberculosis from tropical forest plants of Laos and Vietnam. Collaborating institutions include the National Center for Natural Sciences and Technology and Cuc-Phuong National Park in Vietnam, the Research Institute for Medicinal Plants in Laos, Purdue University, and Bristol Myers-Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute

CONSERVATION AND SUSTAINABLE USE OF BIODIVERSITY IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Dr. Louis R. Barrows and colleagues from the University of Utah are collaborating with several organizations of Papua New Guinea as sources of pharmaceutical and botanical therapies for local and global health needs. Partners in this project include the University of Papua New Guinea, National Forest Research Institute, and PNG Bionet of Papua New Guinea, the Smithsonian Institution, University of Miami, Nature Conservancy, Brigham Young University, and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.

BUILDING NEW PHARMACEUTICAL CAPABILITIES IN CENTRAL ASIA 

Dr. Ilya Raskin and colleagues from Rutgers University lead a project focused on the plant, fungal and microbial biodiversity of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Other partners include the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, Tashkent State Agrarian University and Kyrgyz Agricultural Research Institute, Eisai Research Institute, Diversa, and Phytomedics Inc.

ICBG Planning Grants

DRUG DEVELOPMENT AND BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY CONSERVATION

Dr. Paul Alan Cox and colleagues of the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Hawaii are collaborating with the Samoan Ministry of Trade and Tourism, the Kingdom of Tonga Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, University of California, Santa Cruz, Beth Israel (NY) Integrative Medicine Clinic, the AIDS ReSearch Alliance, Phenomenome Discoveries Inc., Anti-Cancer Inc., and Diversa Inc. to explore plants, marine and micro organisms and develop sustainable production methods of a promising natural product anti-HIV agent. 

POTENTIAL DRUGS FROM POORLY UNDERSTOOD COSTA RICAN BIOTA

Dr. Jon Clardy of Harvard University is collaborating with the National Biodiversity Institute of Costa Rica (INBio) to explore poorly understood endophytic fungi and uncultured soil microbes of Costa Rica. Major therapeutic areas of interest include cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and malaria.

BIODIVERSITY AND DRUG DISCOVERY IN THE PHILIPPINES

Dr. Michael Kron and colleagues from Michigan State University are working with several components of the University of the Philippines to document microbial community diversity in varied terrestrial and marine locations and explore, with the support of local indigenous communities, the therapeutic potential of natural products from documented and undocumented medicinal plants, invertebrates and microbes derived from areas throughout the Philippines.

STUDIES OF THE FLORA AND PREDATOR BACTERIA OF JORDAN

Dr. Nicholas Oberlies and colleagues from Research Triangle Institute, in collaboration with Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, the University of North Carolina and Jordan University of Science and Technology, and the University of Jordan will examine the diversity and therapeutic potential of selected medicinal plants and bacteria of Jordan.

DRUG DISCOVERY AND BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION IN MADAGASCAR

Dr. Iwao Ojima and colleagues from the State University of New York at Stony Brook are working with the Institute for Conservation of Tropical Environment, the University of Antananarivo, and the University of Fianarantsoa of Madagascar as well as the California Academy of Sciences, INDENA SpA, and the University of the Eastern Piedmont of Italy to explore plants and arthropods of Madagascar.

NEW DRUGS FROM MARINE NATURAL RESOURCES- JAMAICAN REEFS

Dr. Larry Walker and colleagues from the National Center for Natural Products Research, with the National Institute of Undersea Science and Technology of the University of Mississippi are collaborating with Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory of the University of West Indies to research the biodiversity and therapeutic potential of marine coral reef organisms of Jamaica.

ECOLOGICAL LEADS: DRUGS FROM REEFS AND MICROBES IN FIJI

Continuing ICBGs

DRUG DEVELOPMENT AND CONSERVATION OF BIODIVERSITY IN WEST AFRICA

Dr. Brian Schuster and colleagues of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, D.C. are working on a second five-year ICBG program to evaluate tropical plants in Cameroon and Nigeria for potential pharmaceutical agents and phytomedicines. Collaborators are the Smithsonian Institution, the Bioresources Development and Conservation Programme, Pace University of New York, the University of Utah, the University of Minnesota, the University of Jos and the International Centre for Ethnomedicine and Drug Development in Nigeria, and the University of Dschang, Cameroon.

BIOACTIVE AGENTS FROM DRYLAND BIODIVERSITY OF LATIN AMERICA

Dr. Barbara Timmermann of the University of Arizona leads a second five-year ICBG program aimed at discovering biologically active agents for pharmaceutical and agricultural uses from arid and semi-arid land plants in Argentina, Chile, and Mexico. Collaborating in this effort are the Institute for Tuberculosis Research, University of Illinois at Chicago; Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia, Agropecuaria (INTA), Argentina; Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile; Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, and Wyeth Research Laboratories. 

Press Release, December 16, 2003: Third Round Awards are Announced Under Interagency Biodiversity Program

ICBG Archive

One former ICBG project, DRUG DISCOVERY AND BIODIVERSITY AMONG THE MAYA OF MEXICO, was terminated in 2002.  Dr. Brent O. Berlin and colleagues at the University of Georgia in Athens collaborated with scientists at the College of the Southern Frontier in Chiapas, Mexico, and Molecular Nature Ltd. to evaluate pharmacologically important tropical plants and fungi utilized by the Maya-speaking peoples of southern Mexico.

"Living on Earth," the weekly environmental news and information program distributed by National Public Radio, broadcast a feature story about the Maya ICBG and its termination on January 5, 2002:
Print version
Real Player version
MP3 version

The journal Nature published a news feature about the Chiapas ICBG on December 13, 2001.  That feature and a letter of clarification from NIH, NSF, and USDA staff are available:
The Curtain Falls  Nature 414, 685, (2001): December 13, 2001
Curtain has fallen on hopes of legal bioprospecting Nature 416, 15, (2002): March 7, 2002

Additional Reading

Rosenthal, J.P., et al. (1999). Combining High Risk Science with Ambitious Social and Economic Goals. Pharmaceutical Biology Vol. 37, Supplement, pp. 6-21. (PDF Files can be read using Adobe Acrobat Reader - free software)  Frequently Asked Questions about PDF Files

Rosenthal, J.P. (1997): Early Lessons for the International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups. In: Grifo, F.T., Rosenthal, J.P., eds., Biodiversity and Human Health, Washington, DC, Island Press, pp. 281-301.

Rosenthal, J.P. (1996). Equitable Sharing of Biodiversity Benefits: Agreements on Genetic Resources. Proceedings of the OECD International Conference on Biodiversity Incentive Measures. Cairns, Australia.

Grifo, F.T. (1996). The Role of Chemical Prospecting in Sustainable Development. In: Feinsilver, J., ed., Emerging Connections Among Biodiversity, Biotechnology, and Sustainable Development in Health and Agriculture, Washington, D.C., Pan American Health Organization.

Albers-Schonberg, G., et al. (1997) Report of a Special Panel of Experts on the International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups (ICBG). Proceedings of the Progress Review Meeting. Bethesda, Maryland.

RFA-Request for Applications (1997). International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups. NIH, NSF, USAID TW-98-001. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office.

Schweitzer, J., et al. Summary of the Workshop on Drug Development, Biological Diversity and Economic Growth (1991). Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol. 83, Sept. 18, 1991.

Y. Seo, J. Hoch, M. Abdel-Kader, S. Malone, I. Derveld, H. Adams, M. C. M. Werkhoven, J. H. Wisse, T. Glass, S. W. Mamber, J. M. Dalton, and D. G. I. Kingston, "Bioactive Saponins from Acacia tenuifolia from the Suriname Rainforest." J. Nat. Prod. 2002, 65, 170-174.

Contact Information

For additional information on the ICBG Program, contact the ICBG Program Director:

Dr. Joshua P. Rosenthal
Fogarty International Center
National Institutes of Health
Building 31, B2C39
31 Center Drive MSC 2220
Bethesda, MD 20892-2220
Phone: (301)496-1653
Fax: (301) 402-2056
E-Mail: Joshua_Rosenthal@nih.gov

          Contacts at collaborating funding organizations:
          ICBG Technical Advisory Group

Additional Information

Natural Products Screening Opportunities may be available at the NIH.