By Corinna Wu
From Washington, D.C., at the 166th annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Scientists scouring the natural world for medicines have come up with another promising prospect. A compound isolated from the root of an African tree can kill fungi and bacteria, reports Kurt Hostettmann of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. He and his colleagues are developing the chemical as a fungicide for treating infections and protecting crops.
The compound comes from the tree Bobgunnia madagascariensis, which grows throughout tropical Africa. Traditional medicine practitioners use the roots to treat leprosy and syphilis and also to kill termites. Knowing this, Hostettmann and his colleagues collected root samples to see if they could find any biologically active compounds.