This GYA Working Group focuses on biodiversity conservation from a biomedical perspective. The aims are to preserve knowledge about the medicinal properties of different species, create a global knowledge hub for biodiversity and biomedicine, and develop new pharmaceuticals from nature while protecting biodiversity.
The loss of biodiversity minimises the potential for harvesting new medicines and for future medical discoveries. This is due to the interdependence of sustainability of the environment, human wellbeing, and the development of new public health practices. The actions of our group will mobilise the skills and expertise within the GYA to address this issue. In addition, the Bio2Bio incubator group aims to create practical recommendations for the sustainable use of Earth’s finite natural resources for healing purposes and requests the support from policymakers. With the expanding loss of biodiversity, we must act now to avoid losing new solutions for human-focused problems.
Membership of GYA activities is reserved to current or former GYA members only.
Active members – Active group members are current GYA members proactively participating in the group’s overall work and progress, by contributing to discussions or (text) outputs, or organising and running workshops and other (online) meetings.
Followers – Followers of a group are subscribers to the mailing list, but are not expected to actively contribute. Followers may be current members or alumni of the GYA.
Past Members – Past members are GYA members and alumni who have previously been active in the group. They are no longer included in group communications/mailing lists.
For GYA members and alumni: please use the form below to set or change your membership status for this group.
Non-GYA members: sign up for the monthly GYA newsletter by using newsletter sign-up form at the very bottom of this page.
We currently have no links to external websites to offer by this activity.
For GYA members and alumni only: connect to the group, collaborate and discuss with other members on the GYA-internal Agora platform here.
2019
January 2019 – The group have issued a call, with the support of the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP), for all IAP member academies to join its network aimed at protecting the molecular diversity needed for novel biomedical discoveries and development. This network aims to create an open, interdisciplinary, international collaborative platform for the exchange of data and knowledge on biodiversity. For details and on how to sign up to the initiative, please see the Call here.
Spring 2018 – The group is currently organising a Scientific Symposium on Biodiversity and Biomedicine: Sustainability for Human Health within the World Social Science Forum in September 2018 in Japan. See here for details.
The group is working on forming a network of research activities (finding new lead compounds from indigenous species) and establishing a library of compounds.
August 2020 – A policy paper by several group members on “Towards policies that capture the expected value of biomolecular diversity for drug discovery, human health, and well‑being” has been published in Biologia Futura in August 2020 (open access). In the paper, the authors argue that there exists an urgent need to over-come economic, disciplinary, national, cultural, and regional barriers, in order to work out innovative measures to create a sustainable future and prevent the mutual extinction of humans and other species. The paper aims to help policy-makers with a characterization of the intrinsic value of biodiversity and its role as a critical foundation for sustainable development, human health, and well-being.
July 2020 – Several group members contributed to a publication on “Biodiversity and Biomedicine: Our Future” (published by Elsevier; behind a paywall). GYA alumni and former group co-leads Dilfuza Egamberdieva (National University of Uzbekistan, Uzbekistan) and Milica Pesic (University of Belgrade, Serbia) co-edited the book with Munir Ozturk from Turkey. The book examines the diverse connections between conserving Earth’s biodiversity and human healthcare, and provides a new outlook on Earth’s animal, plant, and fungi species as vital sources for human health treatments. While there are over 10 million various species on the planet, only 2 million have been discovered and named. This book identifies modern ways to incorporate Earth’s species into biomedical practices and emphasizes the need for biodiversity conservation.
April 2019 -Group members have published a paper on medicinal plant extracts in Acta Naurae.
October 2018 – Group members have published a paper on “Sharing digitized DNA sequences must balance scientific progress with fair use“.
Summer 2018 -The group have published a promotional video of their work, filmed by Nerina Finetto/ Traces.Dreams.
January 2018 – The group’s first position statement on the ‘Conservation of Biodiversity: Protecting Molecular Diversity and Biomedical Discoveries‘ has been released.
December 2017 – Several members from the Biodiversity group have been involved in the publication of an article titled “Bio2Bio Consortium: Biodiversity, Drug Discovery, and the Future of Global Health – introducing the Biodiversity to Biomedicine Consortium, a Call to Action” in the Journal of Global Health.
