ICBG Central Asia Project: Uzbekistan Associate Program in Biodiversity Inventory, Collection, Training and Screening (UAP)
The Republic of Uzbekistan has a relatively high biodiversity index and a high level of endemism . However, there is a definite lack of information about the chemodiversity of Uzbekistan ’s plants, fungi and prokaryotes. The unique and diverse geography and biota and the presence of some of the world’s most distressed ecosystems, such as the Aral Sea , create a major opportunity for a productive biodiversity and chemodiversity exploration. Scientists from Rutgers University have long-standing relationships with many biological and agricultural research institutions in Uzbekistan and have already established a functional framework of collaborations with local scientists and officials. These relationships have been formalized in four separate research and germplasm collection and exploration agreements between Uzbekistan and Rutgers University . The proposed ICBG program will be based on the solid and successful foundation that has been built between the participating scientists.
The Uzbekistan Associate Program (UAP) will work closely with the rest of the ICBG program to discover valuable therapeutic agents from the broad cross-section of Uzbekistan biota. This activity will result in greater economic opportunities for the local people, enhanced research capacity, increased biodiversity conservation and the development of new and efficacious therapeutics based on locally produced natural products.
UAP will have two major tasks: 1) to collect, catalogue and preserve the plant, fungal and prokaryotic biodiversity of Uzbekistan and procure, prepare and share the samples of this biodiversity with the U.S.A. partners; 2) to be responsible for one of the pharmacological screening and toxicological testing components of the overall ICBG program. The first task will share the approaches and methodologies with the Kyrgyzstan Associate Program (KAP), as described in detail in the KAP proposal. It is expected that, following 5 years of extensive collections and biodiversity cataloguing activity, the UAP will produce about half of the samples that will be used in pharmacological screening associated with this ICBG program. The ICBG sample storage facilities established in the Tashkent State Agrarian University will be used as a depository for the collected samples. Pharmacological screening will be performed by two major research institutes in Uzbekistan : Cardiology Institute of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Institute of Oncology of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Uzbekistan . This screening will focus on the cardiovascular diseases / inflammation and HIV. In addition, The Institute of Oncology will be responsible for the toxicology testing, which, at the later stages of the proposal, will be performed for some of the advanced leads developed by the Associate Programs. In addition, UAP will host most of the training activities, such as short courses, associated with this Program and administered through B iodiversity, Bioinformatics and Training Associate Program (BTAP) . These courses will be offered at the Tashkent State Agrarian University .