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Drug Discovery Program Helps Save Rainforests, Too

Botanist Nayda Flores collects samples on the island of Coiba, off the coast of Panama.
Photo by Rafa Aizprua
Botanist Nayda Flores collects samples on the island of Coiba, off the coast of Panama.

By Sheri Quinn

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kuer/local-kuer-856805.mp3

Salt Lake City, UT – In the 1990s, two University of Utah biologists started a drug discovery program in Panama to search for new pharmaceuticals in the jungle. But their main goal was to save the rapidly disappearing rain forests where they collected their plant samples. Now their team has identified a potentially novel cancer drug while helping to protect a small biologically diverse island called Coiba. Sheri Quinn reports.

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