Exploration, Conservation, and Development of Marine Biodiversity in Fiji and the Solomon Islands
This International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups (ICBG) Program is a multi-institutional drug discovery effort lead by research groups at Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT), Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) and the University of the South Pacific (USP) in Suva, Fiji. The goal of this ICBG Program is to explore, conserve, and develop marine biodiversity in the South Pacific as a sustainable source of novel biologically active natural products that can be developed into new drugs urgently needed for the treatment of cancer, neurological disorders, neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and infectious diseases caused by drug-resistant microbes.
This ICBG Program consists of four independent Associate Programs (AP1, AP2, AP3, AP4) and the Central Operations Core (COC) that conduct highly synergistic research and emphasize training and technology transfer to Fiji and the Solomon Islands. The expertise of AP leaders cover a broad range of research disciplines including community ecology, chemical ecology, microbiology, molecular biology, natural products chemistry, and medicinal chemistry. Synergistic work among APs is generating collaborative and highly interdisciplinary research objectives that transcend traditional natural product drug discovery paradigms. The COC of the ICBG conducts bioassays on samples sent to GIT and organizes samples to send out to collaborators for further testing.
