University of Illinois at Chicago
College of Pharmacy
833 S. Wood Street (M/C 781)
Chicago, IL 60612-7231
Office: 318 PHARM
Office Phone: 312-996-8889
Lab Phone: 312-665-7865
Fax Number: 312-996-7107
E-mail address: DDS@uic.edu
Personal Webpage:
http://uic-icbg.pharm.uic.edu
School of Biology, B.Sc., 1958-1962
Harvard University, M.A., 1963-1965
Harvard University, Ph.D., 1965-1969
Tufts University, Latin American Teaching Fellow 1969-1971
Harvard University, Research Associate in Ethnopharmacology 1974-1975
ICBG - International Cooperative Biodiversity
Group Program
Since 1998, I have been involved in an international collaborative research
program called ICBG (International Cooperative Biodiversity Group program) as
its Principal Investigator, with member-institutions located at my own institution
(UIC), in Vietnam (Institute of Biotechnology/IBT, Institute of Chemistry/ICH,
Institute of Ecology and Biological Resourceces/IEBR of the National Center
for Science and Technology/NCST, Hanoi; Cuc Phuong National Park/CPNP, Ninh
Binh), in Laos (Traditional Medicine Research Center/TMRC, Vientiane), and in
UK (Glaxo Wellcome/GW, now Glaxo Smith Kline/GSK). The specific aims of this
program are (1) to study plant diversity at Cuc Phuong National Park and medicinal
plants of Laos, (2) to search for biologically active molecules from plants
of these two countries as potential candidates for drug development (cancer,
AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, Alzheimer disease, pain), and (3) to promote economic
development among members of communities in the areas where the ICBG research
is undertaken, as well as to strengthen the scientific capacity and the infrastructure
of the ICBG host institutions. To know more about my work, visit
http://uic-icbg.pharm.uic.edu. This ICBG research is supported, in part,
by Grant 1-UO1-TW01015 (1998-2003), International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups
Program, through funds from NIH, NSF, and Foreign Agricultural Service of the
USDA.
Soejarto DD., Gyllenhaal,C, Regalado JC, Pezzuto JM, Fong HHS, Tan GT, Hiep
NT, Xuan LT, Hung NV, Bich TQ, Loc PK, Vu BM, Southavong BH, Sydara K, Bouamanivong
S, O'Neill MJ, Dietzman G. 2002. An international collaborative program to discover
new drugs from tropical biodiversity of Vietnam and Laos. Natural Product
Sciences 2002; 8:1-15.
NCI-Sponsored
Plant Explorations (Southeast Asia)
For the past 16 years, I have had the privilege of running a plant exploration
program under the sponsorship of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The focus
of the program is the tropical rain forests of Southeast Asia, from Bangladesh
east to Papua New Guinea. The objective is to collect plants based on taxonomic
diversity approach for screening against cancer (and later, AIDS) at the laboratory
of the NCI. The exploration program started in 1986, with collections undertaken
heavily in Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. Operation
shifted to Indochina in 1996, to this day, although plant collections in Papua
New Guinea continues. A team of many botanists (US-based and those based in
the country of collections) have taken part in this program. This program
has been implemented under NCI contracts with the University of Illinois at
Chicago and under a Memorandum of Agreement between the NCI and host-country
institutions and with permits from respective government authorities. To date,
more than 17,000 plant samples of angiosperms have been collected (comprising
3000-3500 species) and delivered to NCI. The success of the program is reflected
in the collection of samples of Calophyllum lanigerum (Guttiferae) tree
in a tropical rain forest of Sarawak (Malaysia) in 1987, from which the NCI
scientists discovered the anti-HIV compound Calanolide A, a coumarin class of
compound, currently under clinical trials phase I/II by Sarawak-MediChem Pharmaceuticals,
Inc. (http://www.sarawak-medichem.com/).
In 1992, a second species, Calophyllum teysmannii, was discovered, yielding
Calanolide B, currently under preclinical trials at the same company. This NCI
contract is re-competed every 5 years; following a successful re-competition
in 2000, this plant exploration program continues to operate through 2006. This
program is funded through NCI Contracts NO1-CM-67925 (1986-1991), NO1-CM-17
(1991-1996), NO2-CM-67255 (1996-2001), and NO2-CM-17013 (2001-2006).
Fuller, RW, Bokesch, HR, Gustafson, KR, McKee, TC, Cardellina II, JH,
McMahon, JB, Cragg, GM, Soejarto, DD, Boyd, MR. HIV-inhibitory coumarins from
latex of the tropical rainforest tree Calophyllum teysmannii var.
inophylloide. Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters 1994; 4: 1961-1964.
Soejarto, DD, Gyllenhaal, C, Ashton, PS, Sohmer, SH. Plant explorations
in Asia under the sponsorship of the National Cancer Institute: 1986-1991. In:
Balick, MJ, Elisabetsky, E, Laird, SA, Medicinal Plant Resources of the Tropical
Forest, Columbia University Press, New York 1996; pp. 284-310.
Plot-based Drug Discovery Effort
In 1989, I initiated an experiment of collecting plants in the NCI drug
discovery program by setting up a 1-hectare plot in a tropical rain forest in
Palawan, Philippines. In this process, plant samples were collected from marked
and numbered trees of a certain minimum diameter. Every collection was documented
by voucher herbarium specimens as basis for taxonomic identification. Two species
(of about 150 species of trees) in that plot turned out active in the anti-HIV
tests. With other faculty members and with our graduate students in pharmacognosy,
we extended this plot design with more plot-based plant drug screening from
the forests of Philippines, Costa Rica, Panama, the Dominican Republic, USA
(tropical Florida) and Vietnam. Two compounds with antiplasmodial activity,
methyl gallate and methyld digallate, were isolated from Swintonia foxworthyii
(Anacardiaceae) and a new cytotoxic compound, ardisenone, was isolated from
Ardisia iwahigensis (Myrsinaceae), both species from plots in Philippine
forests; a novel antiplasmodial alkaloid, costaricine, was isolated from Nectandra
salicifolia (Lauraceae) from a plot in the forest of Costarica; an antimicrobial
biphenyl neolignan was isolated from Caryodaphnopsis tonkinensis (Lauraceae)
from a plot in a tropical rain forest of Vietnam. A plot-based drug testing
of plants from a 1-hectare plot in a tropical rain forest of the Barro Colorado
Island (Panama) found that of 40 selected for testing, 12 showed activity in
one or more of the 11 bioassay systems used (anticancer, anti-HIV, antimalarial,
and cancer chemopreventive assays). Work is on-going in the isolation on new
anticancer agents from plants from plots set down in the hardwood hammocks of
southern Florida. Plot-based drug discovery research has been supported through
funds from the NCI contract, the NCDDG grant, a NIH antimalarial grant, and
a grant from the MacArthur Foundation.
Bohlke, M, Guinaudeau, H, Angerhofer, CK, Wongpanich, V, Soejarto, DD,
Farnsworth, NR., Mora, GA, Poveda, LJ. Costaricine, a new antiplasmodial bizbenzylisoquinoline
alkaloid from Nectandra salicifolia trunk bark. Journal of Natural
Products 1996; 59:576-580.
Horgen, FD, Guinaudeau, H, Pezzuto, JM, Soejarto, DD and Farnsworth, NR. Isolation
and structure elucidation of ardisenone: A new, cytotoxic alkenylphenol from
Ardisia iwahigensis. Journal of Natural Products 1997; 60:533-535.
Calderon, AI, Angerhofer, CK, Pezzuto, JM, Farnsworth, NR, Foster, RB, Condit,
R, Gupta, MP, Soejarto, DD. Forest plot as a tool to demonstrate the pharmaceutical
potential of plants in a tropical forest of Panama. Economic Botany 2000; 54:278-294.
Stevia Research
As part of studies in the search for high-intensity sweetening agents from
plants at PCRPS, I traveled to Paraguay and a number of Latin American countries
in the early 1980's to carry out field surveys and interviews on sweet-tasting
plants, as well as to acquire plant materials of such species for laboratory
studies at PCRPS. One particular plant became the focus of my research, namely,
Stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni) Bertoni. Two papers resulted from this effort.
Funding for the field studies in the Stevia research was provided from
a grant from the National Institute of Dental Research (A.D. Kinghorn, Principal
Investigator).
Soejarto, DD. Ethnobotany of Stevia and Stevia rebaudiana. In: Kinghorn AD,
editor. Stevia. The Genus Stevia. Medicinal and Aromatic Plants - Industrial
Profiles, Harwood Academic Press, 2002; 40-67.
Soejarto, DD. Botany of Stevia and Stevia rebaudiana. In:
AD Kinghorn, ed., Stevia. The Genus Stevia. Medicinal and Aromatic
Plants - Industrial Profiles, Harwood Academic Press 2002; pp. 18-38.
International Society of Ethnopharmacology
Society for Economic Botany
International Association for Plant Taxonomy
American Society of Pharmacognosy
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Editor, Journal of Ethnopharmacology
Contributing Editor, Pharmaceutical Biology
Editorial Board Member, Actualidades Biologicas
Editorial Board Member, Advances in Natural
Problem-solving in Plant Taxonomy
Contemporary Pharmacognosy (Team-taught)
Contemporary Ethnobotany (Team-taught)
Medical Ethnobotany (Team taught)
Microscopy of Creude Drug Products
Correlative Phytochemistry (Team-taught)
