Manu's Memos

Our research team today had our study published showing how an extract from Tairāwhiti kānuka increases the bioavailability (potency) of a valuable drug, also developed from an Indigenous organism in Polynesia: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667031325000442

Rapamycin is a compound developed from the whenua of Rapanui in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Bacteria from the soil was isolated after a medical research exhibition to the island in the 1960s and has gone on to produce a product worth over USD$300m per year.

The Indigenous Peoples of Rapanui have seen no benefits from the commercial success of Rapamycin and the products derived from their homelands.

This is why GRATK is so important for the World Intellectual Property Organization – WIPO to give more importance to and ensure Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC) participation is supported at every negotiation on multilateral agreements that impact on Indigenous Peoples with the stated (though rarely committed to by all parties) correcting the IP systems that have excluded IPLC since they were created to serve corporate interests and wealthy investors.

Given the significant science and co-funding support this project has had from Callaghan Innovation, it shows how short-sighted it was for the current Government to disestablish the organisation. Nuts. Thanks also to Victoria University of Wellington and Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research for their support over the years with this research. And Storm, our incredible PhD student who is now working at Columbia University in New York – partly because science isn’t valued enough in Aotearoa.

Well done Andrew Munkacsi, Robert Keysers, Nichola Harcourt, Storm Blockley-Powell, Sarah Andreassend, Bella Paenga, Damian Skinner, Teresa Moreno, Stephen Tallon! 👆🏼✊🏽👏🏼