Modern Medicine Man
Plant Scientist Dr. Gary Strobel Searches for Hidden Mysteries of the Rain Forest

Mankind has been in search of new medicines since the dawn of time. We found our first drugs in nature and we've continued to rely on such natural compounds over the centuries. Dr. Gary Strobel carries on this ancient tradition as he searches for new natural medicines in the world's forests. He's relying on an unusual combination of cutting-edge science and traditional aboriginal knowledge. His search takes him throughout the world's most remote rain forests. He's climbed into the highlands of New Guinea and drifted down the serpentine rivers of the Amazon basin. He's looking for rare plants and following obscure clues, seeking a new generation of wonder drugs. And his search has profound implications for all of humanity. Numerous diseases including AIDS and malaria remain uncured and kill millions each year. Bacterial and fungal infections are increasingly becoming immune to many of our wonder drugs rendering them useless. Infections that were previously minor are becoming serious, even fatal. Humanity is engaged in an endless arms race against disease and must continually develop new medicines to keep up. Chemists today create most new drugs in laboratories and while it is possible to create effective drugs in a lab, it is difficult to design something that is truly a radical departure from existing medicines. But the chemical structures of natural drugs are more bizarre than those of man-made compounds and their unique structures can ensure that diseases have little or no defense against them. Natural medicines are poised to play an increasingly important role in humanity's future because they commonly succeed where man-made drugs fail.

The above passage is narrated at the beginning of the fascinating film documentary "Jewels of the Jungle" that highlights Dr. Strobel's revolutionary quest to find new natural medicinal compounds --microscopic life forms called endophytes that harmoniously live inside plants. RailRiders spoke with Dr. Strobel in mid- February, 2008, shortly after his most recent visit to Borneo. (He took along his RailRiders Yukon Canvas Work Pants and Hydro-T for treks into the steamy hot, muddy jungle).

When he's not journeying into the wilds in search of plants, Strobel, a youthful 70,  spends a good part of the year with his wife in landlocked Bozeman, Montana, where he is a professor of plant sciences and plant pathology at Montana State University. He is easy to spot on campus or in town-- he always wears a rolled-up  red stocking cap whose function will become apparent later in the interview. We began our discussion on a musical note--some of the background music in "Jewels of the Jungle" comes from the didgeridoo, an Australian Aboriginal wind instrument in the form of a long wooden tube, and which Strobel  played for the film.

Q:  How long have you been playing the didgeridoo?

GS: About ten years.

Q: Was it hard to learn?

GS: It's very hard to learn to circular breathe. Blowing out at the same time you're sucking in so that there's no interruption in sound.

Q: Do you ever give concerts with the didgeridoo?

GS: Yes, I have. The last one was in May. There was a music student here who wrote some music and wanted me to accompany his written music, which was synthesized music. So he had that playing in the background and I played in front of an audience. And I've played at several weddings, believe it or not.

Q: What kind of trees are they made out of?

GS: Mostly stringy bark and the real source of didgeridoo is the top end of Australia with those people that live in and around Artemland. That's the biggest aboriginal reserve in Australia, and that's where the instrument originated. A lot of people make phony didgeridoos or small didgeridoos or things that look like didgeridoos and when you try to play them, it's just ugh!

Q: Speaking of Australia, whatever happened to your patent with the Snake Vine plant?

GS: There is a company in Wisconsin that is a biotech company that's about to license that organism from the {Montana State} University. Another company had the license and they're giving up all of their rights so that the company in Wisconsin can proceed with it. The company in Wisconsin is going to use it for agricultural and industrial applications and the organism makes a whole plethora of antibiotic-related compounds.

Q: Such as what?

GS: There's probably between 75 and 100 antibiotics made by this Snake Vine organism.

Q: How popular is the Snake Vine plant in aboriginal culture in terms of treating various  ailments?

GS: It's one of the main natural sources for the treatment of open and bleeding wounds. Actually, there are two plants that go by this name of Snake Vine and they belong to different plant families and have different genre or genus names

Q: Before you started your search for endophytic micro-organisms, how many people were doing this type of work in the world?

GS: You know, there was a lady here in January from C and E News, which is a publication that circles among engineering and chemistry people around the globe, and she asked me that same question, "Where else in the United States could I go to find somebody to comment on what you do, or is there anyone that does comparable things to what you do? And certainly, there must be someone in California or somewhere that does this?" And the answer is, "No." And there are a number of reasons why. But first, I should add that there's one person who starting to do this kind of work, and that's my son, Scott, who is professor and chair of  molecular biophysics  and biochemistry at Yale.


Q: This sounds parallel to a traditional culture of passing down generational knowledge from father to son.

GS: Yeah, that's what's happening and it's rare in science; it doesn't happen very often. But back to your other question. Pharmaceutical companies  searched  soils for years to find microbial biodiversity. They got tons of soil samples literally, from every eco-system they could find on the earth and that yielded a whole plethora of bioactive Streptomycetes, which make  up 80% of the world's antibiotics. And now most pharmaceutical companies are  out of the business of searching for new antibiotics. They would rather do other kinds of things like looking after your allergies or taking care of your upset stomach than they would curing you of a drug-resistant staph infection. The bottom line, however, should be to follow the approach that I have of looking at plants, because plants serve as a great reserve and also a great source. If you're a microorganism and are smart enough to make an association  with a higher organism such as a plant, you have a guaranteed supply of food nutrient and at the same time you have protection from other organisms and…

Q: I like the metaphor you used in one of your interviews in "Jewels of the Jungle." You said, "Endophytes fight off threats like the Mafia." They whack the bad guys.  So which ones are like Tony Soprano?

GS: Yeah! I've never watched  the show so I don't know who he is!  But they eliminate the pathogens that might pose a threat to the plant, but because they themselves have learned how to interact with the plant, they cause no damage or harm or otherwise observable symptoms on the plant. But returning to your first question, "Why is it that no one else is doing this," That can be answered with a multitude of comments. One, is the diversity of microorganisms on the planet greatly increases as you go from the poles to the equator, so basically that puts you in the jungles of the earth. Most people's impression of jungles is a negative one because they've watched television and they've seen, "Oh, yes, hey, I'm gonna have to deal with snakes and spiders. Gonna have to deal with diseases such as malaria and dengue fever and yellow fever and a myriad of other diseases. Hey, I'm not sure how I'm gonna get there. Who do I call? Yeah, I can go to my travel agent and I'll ultimately end up in Lima or Cuzco or somewhere like that, but how do I actually get to the jungle? I don't know anybody who lives there. The problems that I might have is that  I don't know any of the plants because none of the plants that I'm familiar with in the United States actually grow in the jungle." And you need to know the plants, the source of the microbe in the first place. Plus, you have to have experience in microbiology and mycology to be able to identify the microbes that you're ultimately going to get out of the plant. Then you have to have some experience in developing assays, identifying the microbes and figuring out ultimately if the microbe of interest is making a product, and then how to grow the organism, get the product out, and ultimately identify that product. So we're dealing with a whole multitude of fields and disciplines including botany, mycology, microbiology, chemistry, separation science, natural products, medicine, pharmacology, and actually it takes a group of people and that's how I operate; there's a group of colleague, some of whom I've been dealing with for fifty years like with Bill Hess at Brigham Young University.

Q: Why won't the pharmaceutical companies invest greatly in you or organizations that work with you?

GS: There's one other problem and that is getting permits and going through all the legal aspects of collecting in another place. So all of these points that I just made to you are hurdles, but then there's one final hurdle and that is what kind of proposal are you going to write to a federal agency or to a company that says, "All right, I'm going on a fishing expedition. Would you fund me?" "No!"

Q: But Dr. Strobel, you struck gold with finding the endophyte that's the same compound as the drug for the anti-cancer drug Taxol.

GS: Yeah, it treats breast cancer. It's the first billion-dollar anti-cancer drug.

Q: Did you make money off that?

GS: Well, it turns out the microbes make {the compound}, but the microbes don't make enough of it to have ever been commercial, but it set the stage.

Q: You licensed the endophyte for Taxol to which company?

GS: That was licensed to a company called Cytoclonol, that in turn, licensed it to Bristol-Meyers.

Q: So right now it's still part of R&D?

GS: Uh, actually I'm not sure where it is and I've sort of moved onto a lot of other things including a fungus that makes volatile antibiotics.

 

Q: Where did you find this fungus?

GS: That was in Honduras and the fungus is licensed to a company called AgriQuest in Davis, California.The fungus is grown on barley or some other grain and then the infested grains are put in the soil and the fungus disinfects soil as an alternative to methyl bromide.

Q: Methyl bromide is a big problem in the Salinas Valley in California where all the strawberries are grown. It must be harmful to farm workers.

GS: Yeah. They lose lung function and other bodily functions.

Q: And yet they used to say it's safe for humans but kills anything that's bad in the soil.

GS: Garbage. It's scheduled for elimination soon because it's destroying the ozone layer.

Q: Methyl bromide…so we can eat plump strawberries.

GS: Yep, but the use of biologicals as alternatives to major chemicals that are used to control disease is under severe investigation all around the world.

Q: How many endophytes do have you patents on besides the one associated with Taxol?

GS: I think I have about fifty patents. The gas-producing fungus, which is licensed to AgriQuest, is also licensed to a company here in Montana called Phillips Environmental Products. If you looked about three months ago on the front page of the New York Times, there's an article about Phillips Environmental Products; they make a port-a-toilet which contains a biodegradable bag and the biodegradable bag contains a liquid absorbent -- it's a dry powder and as soon as liquid hits it, it turns to a gel and included in that gel is M-Albas, our gas-producing fungus. It starts to grow, it degrades the human waste and along with its gases, it decontaminates the waste of e-coli, which is the predominant microbe in the waste. AgriQuest is considering using the rainforest fungus.for treating greenhouse soils and for treating fruit in shipment. You know, most of the grapes we get this time of year are  from Chile and they'll put the fungus in boxes with grapes.

Q: Have you found any endophytes that can deal with the superbug  known as MRSA that is killing tens of thousands of Americans in hospitals?

GS: The gases of M-Albas will kill that organism.

Q: So why isn't the Center for Disease Control  in Atlanta all over this?

GS: We haven't published on MRSA yet and its sensitivity to these gases.

Q: Is that going to happen soon?

GS: Yes, within the next six months.

Q: MRSA is really dangerous to people in hospitals.

GS: Yep, but there's the possibility that you could formulate these gases into liquid forms. You can put the mixture and use it as a treatment to decontaminate hospital surfaces and so forth.

Q: Can your approach lead  away from the problem of developing immunity to antibiotic drugs?

GS: They don't know that, but given the fact that there's multitude of compounds that are having their effect on microbial division, I would guess that it would be. 

Q: Let's move on. In "Jewels of the Jungle," you mentioned that there's three hundred thousand species of plants in the world. But of those three hundred thousand species, how many have been identified in terms of their micro-organisms?

GS: I think there's only one or two plants and their grass species that have been thoroughly investigated for the endophyte population that's in them. In this case, the endophytic organisms associated with that grass have a negative impact on the grazing animals that eat the grass. So for years, endophytes were thought as nasty organisms, but I look at them in a totally reversed way as being very positive.

Q: You said, "negative" - what do you mean?

GS: Well, because the animals eating the grasses that have these endophytes in them get sick.

Q: But they learn to stay away from them, don't they?

GS: Uh, I don't know about that.

Q: How did the ancient medicine men find  miracle plants?

GS: By trial and error. You know, you get sick and you say, well, you know, maybe we should try this. Some of the stuff that's out there, is just hocus pocus; it has no basis in fact other than you feel that because you're doing something that treats your problem, that somehow what you're doing is helping you. As long as people are on this planet, that phenomenon will continue, but in my experience, the
aborigines of Australia have homeopathic medicine down to a `t' because they're the oldest continuous civilization on the planet. They haven't gotten there by relying on hocus pocus! You understand what I'm saying?

Q: Yes. It's cultural.

GS: And it's very ancient and everything that I've ever looked at or tried that they've recommended works.

Q:  How many trips do you take a year?

GS: Well, this year it looks like it's going to be four or five. I've just come back from Borneo. I visited seven different jungles usually for one or two days each.

Q: How deep do you go?

GS: Oh, sometimes several miles.

Q: Wearing your RailRiders clothing, I hope?

GS: Yeah!

Q: The Borneo conditions must have been pretty wretched?

GS: It's the most diverse and toughest jungle I've ever been in.

Q: What's it like hiking through it? Do you take paths?

GS: Well, unusually you go on animal trails or previously laid-out jungle trails by natives, the Dayaks.

Q: Did you stay in their long houses?

GS: I visited a lot of long houses, but I didn't stay in one.

Q: Did the medicine men in the Dayak culture point you to the right plants?

GS: Yes. I probably picked up about twenty samples and I'm having a look at them right now. Basically, we use three concepts for picking plants and one of them is medicinal use; and secondly, plants that are really peculiar and in areas of high diversity; thirdly, plants that represent families that have been around a couple of hundred million years. There are certain plant families in that category that exist in what used to be ancient Gondwanaland, but is now represented by such countries as New Zealand and Australia and South Africa and Madagascar. But the point is, because they've been on earth so long and so continuously that if they reproduce and occupy the landscape, the micro-organisms that associated with them or have sort of become associated through symbiotic relationships also remain with the population and so conceivably over that amount of time, these associations will have occurred and if the microbes are helping the plant in some way by making bioactive materials, some of those bioactive materials that help the plant might also be useful and helpful.

Q: Let's examine a Frankenstein scenario --what about genetically artificially-created plant organisms that somehow leave the lab and are planted in a field and it's found that they create something that can't be controlled? 

GS:  Yeah, those are fears that are sort of generated by the people who are opposed to genetically modified crops. But actually recombination events are going on all the time, everyday. In your gut right now, there's recombination of DNA. There's three hundred different microbes that live in your gut.

Q: Is there a healthy distinction between eating cloned plants versus cloned animals??

GS: The best example of a cloned plant that we all rely on is the Russet Burbank potato and it is not reproduced by seed; it is cloned actually. We've been relying on that cloned plant for oh, seventy or eighty or a hundred years.

Q: But when you make the migration from the plant to the animal kingdom, is that a fear that should alarm us?

GS: Not that I can see. The main problem in agriculture that I see is having a landscape basically that's all of one genotype and then that genotype becomes very sensitive. If a disease pathogen comes along, then presumably that one genotype can literally be exposed to being extinguished by a pathogen. The best example of that happening in this country was in 1970 with the corn blight epidemic. We had a male sterility factor in the nation's corn. Probably 95% of the nation's corn had that one male genetic factor in it that was somehow connected to sensitivity to the corn blight fungus; that fungus took out between twenty and thirty percent of all the corn that year. 

Q: You're like this treasure that I'm sure many wish could preserve  for hundreds of years!

GS: (Laughs) The only way that that can happen is me taking the time to educate others around the world as to what's going on. I have three goals: one is to basically find some new things out there that solve problems of mankind, and they can be agricultural agents or for use in medicine or industry. And secondly, to encourage people in other countries, especially the Third World or developing countries which are usually those associated with equatorial regions of the earth, to go out and capitalize on their biological diversity. That's where I was the last couple of weeks in Malaysia giving lectures, encouraging people to get out, and now there's a whole contingent of folks located in several places including Borneo that realize that their biodiversity is something they need to study and grab onto. And then the third point is once that's done,  the important thing is  the conservation and preservation of the world's rainforests. If you can place another economic factor on the value of the forest, not only to your country, but to the world for a number of reasons, then that will get done and we've had some success in doing that this in several countries.

Q: How many disciples are out there, so called Strobelians?

GS Three years ago I was invited to go to Brazil, down to San Paolo area and they had me lecturing at three or four universities and I thought maybe there'd be two or three or four or five or a handful of students. There were hundreds of people.

Q: It seems like Brazil is now leading the way in terms of alternative fuel sources with plants.

GS:  That's absolutely correct. Every day I get inquires from people all over the world wanting to come here to Bozeman; people who want information; people who want advice; people who want help. I've heard from people in Ethiopia,  Cameroon; I have a number of consultancies including one in Cape Town in South Africa. It's a start-up company  that's looking  at endophytes. There's a huge amount of plant diversity all along the Cape of South Africa,  and I was there last June and sure enough, there's just endophytes all over the place.

Q: Any other universities or scientists in the U.S. doing research with biologically active endophytes?

GS:  Can't name you one person.

Q: So it's just the Strobels.

GS: I think it's because of all these reasons that I earlier gave you. There are botanists who go to the jungles and find new plants all the time, like  the Missouri Botanical Garden, but they don't have anybody doing endophytes and looking at products of endophytes. 

Q:You ever have trouble bringing the plants back into the United States?

GS: Oh, initially a number of years ago I was coming back from Venezuela and arrived in Boston. I showed airport officials my permit, which had expired the day before, so they took my samples and I took their name and number and explained to them what I was doing. I called them the day after I got back to Bozeman. They said, "Yeah, we have them, we've looked at them," and I gave them my Fed Ex number and they arrived the next day and there was no problem. The USDA  is another agency you have to deal with bringing plant materials back, so I have a continuously open permit that allows me to do this. The agency has come here and done an inspection of the lab. We handle things in biosafety cabinets and store them at minus-70F. There's always a potential problem when you bring symptomus plants back. Though you see symptomus plants every day when you go to fruit stand in the Safeway or your market, fruits such as mangos, star fruit, grapes; all these things are coming from the production lands of other countries and they're carrying endophytes. The mango that you peel and throw the peel away, it's loaded with endophytes. So I don't worry too much, but I am careful that we're not going to release some microbe. The other advantage, of course, being here in Montana, is that I'm looking at a white landscape right now and tropical microbes sure don't like white landscapes.

Q: Your famous red stocking cap is in the Smithsonian. That must be a honor.

GS: It turns out that that little red cap came as a result of a dream I had many, many years ago of what a cap should be, and it actually is a tube-like sock that compresses on itself. You take the bottom end and push it into the top and the tube opens so the tube can be made into a bag. It's made out of stretch cotton so it has a multitude of uses. When I'm in the jungle, I sweat an awful lot and so I have that hat. All I need to do is reach up and grab the hat and quickly wipe my forehead and it's a salvation in that regard; it's better than using a handkerchief . And also when I camp in the jungle, I open the hat and put my garments inside it so I have a pillow. And the hat sometimes can be used to carry samples. I wear it on airplanes and pull it down over my eyes as a way of blocking out light. I have about seven or eight of them and they're different weights of material, so some are for rainforests and some are for winter time. They're all red. They're the Strobel hat.

Q: But you wear it also on the Montana State campus, do you not?

GS: Yeah, I'm wearing it today! And so the Smithsonian once asked me to come back and visit when I was in Washington and I did and as I was exiting the door, the curator said, "Can we have that hat for the collection?' So I sent him the hat. But there was also a lot of stuff in the late `80s when I didn't get along with the U.S. government and told the EPA to go to hell. I was looking for a cure for Dutch Elm disease and I found a bacterium that killed the fungus that causes the disease and we genetically modified the bacterium and then put it in trees in the greenhouse and we published the paper in the National Academy of Sciences.  One of the reviewers said that it would be really nice to see if this works in the field.  My son was still here at the time on his way to Cal Tech to graduate school. I said, "Scott, help me. Let's go out and treat these young elm trees, on the campus." But someone here said, "Oh, you can't do that. You've got genetically-altered bacterium. You've got to call the EPA." Which I did, and they said, "Oh, you can't do the experiment without our approval." I said, "Quote me your rules,"  and they couldn't. And the bottom line I said, "You know, I think you people are crazy," and I went and did the experiment. Five weeks later they sent six policemen here and they wrote me out a ticket, and then the people on the campus called the Biosafety Committee who thought that they had been subverted. They had a public hearing and invited the local press and the press wrote a story that night of the meeting. I mean, I've been here almost fifty years and I've lead the campus in getting big money and big National Science Foundation grants to improve campus research and the science effort, and so now I've done something wrong and one of the people who had been declined in his request for some of  the money that I held, was in charge of the Biosafety Committee. And then the next day, the Wall Street Journal did a two-page editorial called "Save the Elms-- Wouldn't you know the EPA of all agencies in Washington to protect our environment is about to skewer a man who knows how to do it." And that was quickly followed with a one-page article in Time magazine, which was also followed by a threat from the EPA to throw me in jail and to fine me and to close the University. And, basically, I said, "I'm ready to go to jail," and that was followed then by another editorial in the Wall Street Journal called "The Gallileo Committee"  and they likened my case to Gallileo.  I have it hanging here on my wall. And then I said, "I'm ready to go to jail, but by the way, I'm not going to apologize. I know I'm correct and I think the EPA is crazy." And then at another hearing, I said, "It's time for Congress to get involved." At that point I had a letter from Max Baucus, a good friend, and he was the Montana senator who was in charge of the Finance Committee which was in charge in those years of the Environmental Agencies Committee. I went back to Washington and talked to Congress about what it is that I was doing and ultimately Senator John Chaffee from Rhode Island said, "I've read Strobel's testimony and it makes a hell of a lot of sense," and he told the people from the agencies - there were a multitude of agencies represented, "You get off his case; get your act together and if you don't do it, we're going to do it for you."  And he pointed to them and then they apologized to him and ultimately, they apologized to me. Ha ha, victory! Then what happened was that the bacterium that makes the antibiotic that kills the elm fungus was never used for that purpose because companies looking at it said, "Oh, we can only make ten or twelve million dollars a year on it, and I showed that it was effective against candida albicans, which is a major human pathogen affecting 95% of the world's AIDS patients. So Ely Lily  came and licensed that from the University and started development and that went through the course of the `90s. Then in the late `90s, they called and said, "It's not going to make us enough money. It works,  but it can only make us a hundred million a year and it's not orally active so we're dropping it. What else is it good for, Strobel?' I have such a great relationship with the Lily people!  (laughs). I just love those guys. I said, "Send me a little more money and I'll learn and find out what I can, and lo and behold, the bacterium makes an antibiotic that kills the cigatocca fungus in bananas.

 

Q: What about Dutch Elm? Have they treated the trees with the bacterium?

GS: No and it could be available for that purpose. Because many of the elms are dead, the market is minimal.

Q: What about all the dying pine trees in the Tahoe basin? Is there a cure?

GS: The major problem is the bark beetle that carries Ceratocystis and the infestation becomes so great that the beetle gallery itself kills the tree.

Q: Does the forest then become a fire danger?

GS: You have to think differently about the forests. The most treacherous forest is not a dry, dead forest. You'd think that that's true, but it's not. The most fire-prone forest is a living forest that's under drought stress. Because the trees are making literally tons of turpine {oil}, they're volatile and explosive, and that's not true of a dead tree. During the fires of `88, I have pictures of trees exploding in Yellowstone.

Q: Like the Malibu fires of  last year.

GS: All that was living stuff.

Q: So a dry, dead forest like in the Tahoe region…

GS: It's hardly a fire problem.

Q: From the vantage point of the hiker or somebody driving by, who says, "Look at all those dead trees."

GS:  What happens is that they'll rot and the wind will blow them down. Already in Yellowstone, twenty years has gone by since the fires, and there are literally millions of young trees between ten and fifteen feet tall. So the forest will come back.

 

 
Q: Let me ask you several more questions because this has been really great. Anything more about RailRiders clothing you like to add?

 GS: I always wear the RailRiders pants. I took the Yukon Canvas Work Pants to Patagonia and I was just totally flabbergasted at how well they stand up. They throw off water, don't take up stains, and wear exceedingly well. I'm going to Ecuador next month and that's the first thing that I'll pack. I own several pairs of these RailRiders long pants. I prefer long pants in the jungle for a multitude of reasons, including not getting insect bites, leech activity, and just general protection against the bush. Mosquitoes can't get through the fabric.

Q: How do the natives deal with the jungle?

GS: The jungle guides also usually wear hiking boots and  long pants. You'll be hard-pressed to find a native who's working in the bush at least wearing shorts.

Q: Even the locals in New Guineas?

GS: Oh, in New Guinea, interestingly enough, still to this day in order to avoid scratches and problems with the bush, the natives  coat their skin about every second day with pig grease.

Q: Pig grease?

GS: Yes, and it really works.

Q: I don't think we're going to add pig grease to the RailRiders clothing line. What do you like about RailRiders shirts?

GS: The only thing that I've worn, and I always wear, is the RailRiders wicking Hydro T-shirt. The nice thing about those is that you can wear them a day or two and wring them out and they'll be ready to wear. The wicking material dries very quickly and I like that.

Q: This has been terrific. Any final words about you work and mission in life?

GS:  A lot of people go out and do things in the wild. like climbing the mountains in Patagonia. And all that's great, it's great adventure; it's great fun, but somehow I cannot personally use my time to entertain myself. When I even take an hour or take a bit of time during one of these trips to relax, I'm always looking for some new plant or something new. If you're in the jungle, it's always there.


For more information about purchasing a copy of the film documentary "Jewels of the Jungle," go to www.jewelsofthejungleweb.com.