A University of Texas at Dallas neuroscientist is working with researchers in Cameroon to find out which of that country's traditional plant medicines actually ease pain, and which chemicals inside them do the work, in hopes of finding starting points for new drugs that are not opioids.
Dr. Benedict Kolber, who holds the Dean Bert Moore Distinguished Professorship in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences and works in the university's Center for Advanced Pain Studies, described the project in a university news release published Tuesday.
How the partnership works
Kolber's Cameroonian partner is Dr. Télesphore Nguelefack, a physiology and pharmacology professor at the University of Dschang who has asked people in rural areas what they use for ailments such as arthritis or stomach pain.
In animal tests meant to rule out a placebo effect, Nguelefack found a benefit in more than 60% of his experiments, the release says, but lacked the equipment to isolate individual compounds.
Under the arrangement, scientists in Cameroon do the first screening and send extracts to Kolber's lab and to that of medicinal chemist Dr. Kevin Tidgewell at the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy. Compounds identified there are sent back to Cameroon for final testing.
The two met after Kolber spotted Cameroon's flag on a poster at a scientific conference in Tokyo; he had first visited the country about 25 years ago building wells and bridges with a nongovernmental group.