Discovery of Bioactive Compounds by the UIC-ICBG Drug Discovery Program in the 18 Years Since 1998

The International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups (ICBG) Program based at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) is a program aimed to address the interdependent issues of inventory and conservation of biodiversity, drug discovery and sustained economic growth in both developing and developed countries. It is an interdisciplinary program involving the extensive synergies and collaborative efforts of botanists, chemists and biologists in the countries of Vietnam, Laos and the USA. The UIC-ICBG drug discovery efforts over the past 18 years have resulted in the collection of a cumulative total of more than 5500 plant samples (representing more than 2000 species), that were evaluated for their potential biological effects against cancer, HIV, bird flu, tuberculosis and malaria. The bioassay-guided fractionation and separation of the bioactive plant leads resulted in the isolation of approximately 300 compounds of varying degrees of structural complexity and/or biological activity. The present paper summarizes the significant drug discovery achievements made by the UIC-ICBG team of multidisciplinary collaborators in the project over the period of 1998–2012 and the projects carried on in the subsequent years by involving the researchers in Hong Kong.