Jay Keasling, Samoa partner against AIDS in landmark agreement
The University of California, Berkeley, has signed an agreement with
the Samoan government to isolate from an indigenous tree the gene
for a promising anti-AIDS drug and to share any royalties from sale
of a gene-derived drug with the people of Samoa. The agreement, announced
September 30 in Apia, the capital of Samoa, supports Samoa's assertion
of national sovereignty over the gene sequence of Prostratin, a drug
extracted from the bark of the mamala tree (Homalanthus nutans).
The drug currently is being studied by scientists around the world
because of its potential to force the AIDS virus out of hibernation
in the body's immune cells and into the line of fire of anti-AIDS
drugs now in use. full
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Mamala
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