Bethany Elkington, Fulbright Fellow, to Search for TB Cure in Laos
May 27, 2008
Bethany Elkington, a third-year doctoral student in medicinal chemistry
and pharmacognosy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, will study
in Laos this fall as a Fulbright Fellow to learn whether ancient
manuscripts contain clues to treat tuberculosis.
Elkington, a native of Tooele, Utah, who received her undergraduate
degree in biology at Purdue University, will travel to the Southeast
Asian country this fall to begin her 10-month research project.
Laos is located between Vietnam and Thailand and has a population
of more than 6.5 million -- the majority of whom use traditional
medicines on a daily basis, Elkington said, as they have for centuries.
"Buddhist monks have documented these treatments for hundreds of
years in manuscripts written on palm leaves that have been dried,
sanded down and written on with a stylus," she said. "My goal is to
find alternative disease treatments by looking through the manuscripts
for clues about which plants were used in the past, and to determine if
the same plants are still being used for the same treatments."
Palm leaf manuscripts were frequently written with characters
reserved for religious documents, taught primarily to monks, and
unknown by lay people, Elkington said. There is a wealth of information
to be uncovered, as there are vastly more manuscripts than there are
people capable of reading them. The National Library of Laos contains
hundreds of manuscripts that have yet to be translated into a modern
language, she said.
The manuscripts will be examined for indications of tuberculosis, a
disease that is ravaging Southeast Asia and the entire global
population. Elkington said drug resistance and the evolution of new
disease strains make it imperative to find alternative treatments.
Tuberculosis has been documented in Asia for thousands of years,
and some of the manuscripts contain entries detailing the disease's
symptoms, such as chronic cough with blood or weight loss. Along with
studying the manuscripts, Elkington will conduct interviews with
contemporary healers to learn whether the plants that were used to
treat the disease years ago are still being used today.
Preliminary results have shown that many plants are still known by
the same name that was recorded in the manuscripts, she said. Plants
that are cited most frequently will be collected for identification and
extracted for biological and chemical testing at UIC.
Under the direction of Doel Soejarto, professor of medicinal
chemistry and pharmacognosy, UIC has participated for 10 years in the
International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups program in Laos, where
plants are identified and collected that could contain medicinal
properties to cure deadly diseases. UIC works closely with the
Traditional Medicine Research Center of the Ministry of Health of Laos.
As part of her Fulbright award, Elkington will receive round-trip
transportation, maintenance costs for the duration of her stay in Laos,
supplemental health and accident insurance coverage, and tuition for
subject classes and language and orientation courses.
"This project is unique in that it is more than a report," she
said. "It's a living study, incorporating the history and present use
of traditional medicines to return valuable information to the local
population, as well as globally to other users of traditional
medicines, herbal supplements, botanicals, and synthetically derived
medicines that have plant origins."