Gene Piracy
An ethical battle rages as prospectors scour the globe to find--and profit from--organisms that could cure some of the world's worst diseases
By TIM McGIRK New Delhi

A primitive tribe in the Andaman Islands off India's eastern coast may have found a cure for malaria, but scientists won't be able to test this potentially life-saving drug anytime soon. Debaprasad Chattopadhyay, the Indian microbiologist who discovered the tribe's "secret," is refusing to publish the formula--to protect the tribe, he says, and to foil his superiors' attempts to profit from it. And so he has become an unlikely activist in the controversial field of bio-prospecting, the international quest to track down in remote areas medically and scientifically useful--and patentable--substances. It's a hunt critics call "gene piracy."

Chattopadhyay's tale begins with a 1993 expedition through the dense rain forests of the Andamans to visit the Onge tribe. The biologist noticed that, although the Onge were surrounded by mosquitoes, none caught malaria. Befriending the tribe, Chattopadhyay was led into one of the Onge's smoky, beehive-shaped huts and shown a pot containing a bitter, medicinal brew. He was given several of the plants that went into the potion. Back in his laboratory in the Andaman town of Port Blair, he came upon what he claims was a remarkable discovery: two of the plants contained anti-fever properties and a third reduced the number of malarial parasites in infected human blood. Chattopadhyay soon had a chance to test the Onge's medicine. After several jungle visits, he came down with malarial fever. He swallowed juice from the extract and was cured in three days; his fever has not resurfaced. He also asked local doctors to experiment on patients suffering from other strains of malaria, including falciparum, which can be fatal. Again the brew appeared to be effective on each of the seven patients treated.

Although the test group was too small to be conclusive, the findings were encouraging. A remedy for malaria might be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to a pharmaceutical company. The disease kills more than 2 million people a year, mainly in the sweltering latitudes of Africa, Asia and Latin America. The biologist envisioned himself becoming famous and rich; he also envisioned, he now says, that some of the royalties would go to protect the Onge. Fewer than 100 tribesmen survive, and their habitat is vanishing. Onge means "the perfect men" in the tribe's language, and for perhaps 1,000 years such faith in their uniqueness was unshakable. The biologist hoped profits from the Onge's formula could help the tribe safeguard its primitive paradise. Says Samir Acharya, a social activist and friend: "As protectors of biodiversity, he felt that the Onge deserved some reward."

It was not to be. Chattopadhyay discovered that a superior at his government-run research center had planned to file a patent application in his own name for the malaria cure. When the superior demanded that the biologist reveal the plant names, he refused. Back in Port Blair, his boss, Subhash K. Saigal, dismisses the biologist's claims. He contends that the research was still at a preliminary, laboratory stage. "That young scientist got over-excited," Saigal says. Chattopadhyay himself concedes it's possible that the Onge, like some African tribes, may possess a mutant sickle-shaped gene that provides them with immunity from malaria. But authorities won't allow him to return to the Onge's remote home to conduct any further tests.

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