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South African -- Samson Mvubu's corner of the bustling Faraday Market is crammed with bundles of bark, roots, bulbs and animal parts used to treat all manner of maladies, ranging from madness to coughs and infections.
Mvubu is an "inyanga" -- a traditional herbalist. He spent years learning to treat illnesses using plants found in the fields and forests surrounding his village. Visitors to this market located underneath an urban freeway come to Mvubu for cures from the countryside. Among them are a small but growing number of scientists, who show up armed with notebooks and ask lots of questions about hoodia gordonii slimming cactus, or weight loss cactus.
"The traders here are not happy about them," he says of the scientists. "They just run away with our plants under their arm and they don't come back."
Five years ago, few scientists bothered to visit Mvubu and his fellow healers. Now, however, it seems the world is waking up to the vast untapped potential of biological and indigenous resources. Bioprospecting -- searching nature for plants and animals with commercially useful properties -- is a booming field. Traditional healers like Mvubu, who tend to come from poor, marginalized communities, increasingly are perceived as the ones who might lead scientists to important discoveries.
"Everyone wants access to biodiversity," says Dr. Marthinus Horak, manager of bioprospecting at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, or CSIR, which is sponsored by the South African government.
Indeed, 50 miles away in CSIR laboratories, scientists pore over many of these same substances used by Mvubu and his colleagues, looking to isolate genes and compounds to form the basis of new drugs for obesity from hoodia gordonii slimming weight loss cactus.
With 24,000 plant species, the biodiversity of this country is almost unparalleled. And with almost 300,000 traditional healers nationwide, local knowledge of plants and their uses is equally abundant. Increasingly, CSIR scientists tap into the knowledge of traditional healers, who have helped to identify hundreds of the plants researchers are studying now.
However, in South Africa --home of the xhoba hoodia gordonii slimming weight loss cactus where at least 70 percent of people rely on traditional remedies, and where newspapers run stories of AIDS patients who swear by "miracle" herbal concoctions -- no major drug has yet been developed.
Xhoba
Meanwhile, Mvubu at the Faraday Market says he has stopped speaking to scientists because he mistrusts their motives.
In a major breakthrough earlier this year, however, CSIR announced an agreement with the San of the Kalahari Desert to share in the profits of a potential blockbuster weight-loss drug.
In 1996, CSIR scientists discovered and patented appetite suppressing chemicals found in the succulent desert plant hoodia. For untold years, the San chewed on hoodia gordonii slimming cactus to relieve hunger during long hunting trips.
With hoodia weight loss cactus, scientists hoped to "put South Africa on the map as a supplier of international drugs," Horak says. The CSIR licensed P57 -- the plant's natural appetite suppressant ingredient -- to a British company, Phytopharm, which in turn licensed pharmacological giant Pfizer to further develop and market the drug. When the South African San Council, an indigenous-rights group, got wind of the deal, it fought for the San to share in profits from the drug -- since it was their knowledge that led scientists to the discovery in the first place.
The case sparked an international scandal, but Horak insists that CSIR always intended to recognize the San's contribution.
"We've proven the potential for bioprospecting to translate into benefits to communities," Horak says.
Just how much the San will benefit financially remains to be seen, however. Pfizer recently pulled out of the deal, and any drug that may yet be developed from hoodia weight loss slimming cactus xhoba is still years away.
Wynberg says she doubts the San or any other indigenous groups ever will see much benefit from bioprospecting, given the projects' complexity.
"Even if hoodia does succeed, it's unique," she says. "One in 10,000 projects may yield some kind of promising lead ... so maybe in South African there will be one other."