Star Anise
Andrea Ottesen
This is an exhibit of prints of digital photographs of plants used for medicinal purposes. It is more, in that the prints are formal compositions suitable for publication in a botanical text. Thus, the exhibit in a botanical garden is of scientific works. The prints are also quite beautiful, and thus the exhibit also qualifies as an art exhibit. Ottesen has the rare ability to combine artistic sensibility with scientific rigor. So much for Snow's two cultures!
Star anise, pictured above, is the source of shikimic acid used in the production of Tamiflu. Thus in a world facing a possible pandemic of bird flu, the plant has become an important resource.
Ottesen is working with Jim Duke, documenting medicinal plants. It is the economic botanists, like Duke and Ottesen, who comb through ethno-medical concepts, combine them with chemical and other knowledge, and identify plants with potential medical -- and thus economic -- value. When Tamiflu was licensed to Roche, the company refused to manufacture the product until and unless a satisfactory commercial source of shikimic acid could be identified. I don't have direct knowledge, but I am willing to bet that it was the work of botanists like Duke and Ottesen that the inventors sought out as they tried to find the necessary source.
In a time of threatened biodiversity, systematic biology is increasingly important to inventory and describe the natural world. Providing examples of the economic and social value of the genetic resources in plants is fundamental to creating a proper appreciation of that which we seek to protect, and that which we are so much in danger of losing. The example of star anise and Tamiflu, in the face of a potential avian flu pandemic, is especially potent.
That a botanical illustration can make the point with such beauty is more than gratifying. Ms. Ottesen is to be congratulated!
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