Discovery of Natural Product based Drugs and Bioenergetic Materials from CR

描述（由申请人提供）：国际生物多样性保护集团（ICBG）计划通过鼓励美国的计划和生物多样性高的国家的计划来联系三个关键问题，包括人类健康，生物多样性保护和经济发展，以形成综合研究团队。本申请中描述的ICBG涉及位于美国和哥斯达黎加的项目，这些项目将合作：通过使用生态驱动的方法从哥斯达黎加丰富的生物多样性中发现生物活性天然产品来改善人类健康。为生物能源计划的开发做出贡献，以发现用于生物燃料生产的纤维素酶和其他酶。专注于天然产物和生物合成酶相关的研究，对未开发和开发不足的微生物，如海洋细菌和昆虫微生物内共生体。提高哥斯达黎加的研究能力和经济机会，并通过收集生物多样性清单数据、在医学相关分析中对其天然产品进行密集筛选、对其水解酶进行高通量测试、资源共享、明确的惠益分享以及培训学生和访问科学家，促进其国家生物多样性战略。这些广泛的目标将通过位于哥斯达黎加的国家生物多样性研究所（INBio）和美国的哈佛医学院（HMS）和密歇根大学（U-M）的三个联合项目来实现。副项目将进行临床前研究，从天然产物中发现，分离，评估和开发治疗药物。他们的收集计划，将与遗传和表型分析相结合，将扩大哥斯达黎加的微生物生物多样性清单。讲习班和科学交流将提供培训机会。提出了一个关于糖水解酶发现和商业开发的生物能源研究计划，以及一个利用天然产物生物合成中的酶的计划（例如，硫酯水解酶和脱羧酶）在液体燃料生产（生物柴油）中的应用。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The International Biodiversity Conservation Group (ICBG) program links three key issues, including human health, biodiversity conservation, and economic development by encouraging programs in the U.S. and programs in countries with high biodiversity to form integrated research teams. The ICBG described in this application involves programs located in the U.S. and Costa Rica that will cooperate to: Improve human health through the discovery of bioactive natural products from Costa Rica's rich biodiversity using ecologically-driven approaches. Contribute to the development of a bioenergy program toward discovery of cellulases and other enzymes for applications in biofuel production. Focus natural product and biosynthetic enzyme-related research on unexplored and under-explored microorganisms such as marine bacteria and insect microbial endosymbionts. Improve the research capacity and economic opportunities for Costa Rica and contribute to its National Biodiversity Strategy through gathering data for its biodiversity inventory, intensive screening of its natural products in medically relevant assays, high throughput testing of its hydrolytic enzymes, sharing of resources, clear benefit-sharing, and training of students and visiting scientists. These broad aims will be pursued through three Associate Programs located both in Costa Rica at the National Institute of Biodiversity (INBio), and the U.S. at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the University of Michigan (U-M). The Associate Programs will conduct the pre-clinical research to discover, isolate, evaluate and develop therapeutic agents from natural products. Their collection programs, which will be coupled with genetic and phenotypic analyses, will expand Costa Rica's biodiversity inventory for microorganisms. Workshops and scientific exchanges will provide training opportunities. A bioenergy research program on sugar hydrolase discovery and commercial development is proposed as well as a program to harness enzymes from natural product biosynthesis (e.g., thioester hydrolases and decarboxylases) with application in liquid fuel production (biodiesel).