Tropical rainforest species have given us quinine, the first major treatment for malaria, quinidine from the Cinchona Tree, used for heart conditions, and cancer-fighting drugs from the Rosy Periwinkle plant, which have revolutionized the treatment of acute childhood leukemia and Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Temperate species have also yielded some of our most useful drugs—the ‘wonder drug’ aspirin was originally derived from salicin, extracted from the willow tree.

Species also provide medical research models that help us understand human physiology and disease. Consider the polar bear. During its several month hibernation it is largely immobile and doesn’t eat, drink, urinate or defecate, yet it does not starve, become dehydrated, lose bone mass or die from the build-up of urinary wastes. If we stop urinating for only a few days, we die. There is no cure for people with end-stage renal disease, but if we understood how bears recycled their urinary wastes into new proteins, we could possibly treat renal failure.

Amphibians, for example, are used in many parts of the world in traditional medicines by tribal and local peoples, often to meet primary health needs. More than 30 species have been recorded in Traditional Chinese Medicine alone. They also are increasingly recognized as an important potential source of chemical substances for use in modern medicine. A compound isolated from the skin of the endangered Ecuadorian species Epipedobates tricolor is a potent non-addictive analgesic considered to be greater than 100 times more effective than morphine.

We may be losing new medicines and clues for research before species have been studied for their medical potential, or even before they have been discovered. Considered commercially worthless, the Pacific Yew tree was routinely discarded during logging operations until it was found to contain the compound Taxol, now considered one of the most effective chemotherapeutic agents for ovarian, breast and other cancers. How many species like the Pacific Yew are being lost without our ever knowing whether they contain wonder drugs?

Source: World Conservation, A world without Biodiversity, Doctor Nature / Amazing amphibians - IUCN, 2008