of Natural Product based Drugs and Bioenergetic Materials from Costa Rican Biota

描述（由申请人提供）：国际生物多样性保护组织（ICBG）项目通过鼓励美国和生物多样性高国家的项目组成综合研究团队，将人类健康、生物多样性保护和经济发展三个关键问题联系起来。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：利用生态驱动的方法，从哥斯达黎加丰富的生物多样性中发现具有生物活性的天然产品，从而改善人类健康。促进生物能源项目的发展，以发现用于生物燃料生产的纤维素酶和其他酶。将天然产物和生物合成酶相关的研究重点放在未开发和未开发的微生物上，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，并通过以下方式促进其国家生物多样性战略：为其生物多样性清单收集数据、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、共享资源、明确的利益共享以及培训学生和访问科学家。这些广泛的目标将通过哥斯达黎加国家生物多样性研究所（INBio）和美国哈佛医学院（HMS）和密歇根大学（U-M）的三个联合项目来实现。联合项目将进行临床前研究，从天然产品中发现、分离、评估和开发治疗药物。他们的收集项目将与遗传和表型分析相结合，将扩大哥斯达黎加微生物的生物多样性清单。研讨会和科学交流将提供培训机会。提出了一项关于糖水解酶发现和商业开发的生物能源研究计划，以及一项利用天然产物生物合成酶（如硫酯水解酶和脱羧酶）应用于液体燃料生产（生物柴油）的计划。

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).