This week in print
Bent Creek Institute: Plants to people
Writing a guidebook takes more than just a walk in the park
If you're hunting for cancer-fighting substances, there's no need to journey to the Amazon in search of some rare plant dangling in the upper reaches of the jungle canopy. The Bent Creek Institute here in Asheville and its partners at Wake Forest University have discovered a dozen plant species that are “cytotoxic to breast and/or prostate cancer cells in culture,” the BCI Bulletin reported last fall. In collaboration with Western Carolina University chemistry professor Jack Summers, the institute is also preparing its first patent application for a naturally occurring anti-oxidant, superoxide dismutase, that appears to help fight cancer, infectious diseases and inflammation.
Meanwhile, a clinical trial comparing the benefits of combining anti-oxidants and radiation therapy is about to get under way at Mission Hospital, in cooperation with Wake Forest's Comprehensive Cancer Center, says Jeff Schmitt, Bent Creek's research director.
On top of that, Southern Appalachian forests may contain their own version of the cancer-fighting compound Taxol , found in the Pacific yew tree. Scientists are investigating the medicinal properties of the spruce fir, including an endophyte that grows within the high-elevation species' upper reaches, says Joe-Ann McCoy, who directs the ever-expanding BCI Germplasm Repository. (Endophytes are plants or fungi that live inside other plants.)
All these developments are part of the plants-to-people pipeline the institute is charged with developing, Executive Director Cheryl McMurry explains. “We've had people here for eons using and making medicinal, plant-based remedies, but other than Gaia Herbs, there's never been a productive industry built around it,” she continues. The Brevard-based Gaia employs about 100 people and sells its products across the country. Nationwide, the industry generated an estimated $85 billion in sales in the U.S. in 2006, according to the Natural Products Association.
Utah currently claims the lion's share of that business: It's home to the natural-supplement giant Nature's Way, McMurry notes. “Yet nothing grows there: They import all their products. Why not create an industry right here?”
That's no idle suggestion, as Bent Creek has been proving since opening its doors nearly three years ago with a $120,000 grant from the University of North Carolina. She and Schmitt have leveraged that startup money to generate $2 million worth of funding and partnerships. In the current economic climate, some of that state money is at risk, McMurry concedes, but she still maintains, “I want to see Western North Carolina take its place beside the eastern part of the state for science.”
The biotechnology industry's many aspects — research, new crops for farmers, manufacturers, distributors and more — present a huge market opportunity that's too valuable to let slip away, Schmitt asserts.
McMurry says this twist on the green-jobs industry starts with the plants.
All the developments noted above began with the idea that many species either native to Western North Carolina or able to grow here show much promise as medicinals. To better study plants such as beth root (a kind of trillium), black cohosh, ginseng and self-heal , the institute maintains a seed bank. Among the more than 500 plants are 22 black cohosh (Actaea racemosa L.) varieties, all nine echinacea species, and a collection of Chinese medicinals.
The germplasm project is a crucial starting point. Scientists need specimens collected under rigorous guidelines; rare or endangered species need to be conserved; and viable cultivars can be developed from collected plants that can be grown in WNC, McCoy explains. “We're concentrating on medicinal plants but also on endangered habitats,” she notes. The Southern Appalachians have the highest percentage of spruce fir populations in North America, but they're at the limits of their range and vulnerable to changing conditions. Should climate change spur rising temperatures, for instance, “It has nowhere to go,” says McCoy.
She also points out that companies like Gaia would rather buy domestic plants than import them: Echinacea from China is often contaminated by heavy metals, and studies show that the plant's effectiveness varies greatly depending on where and how it's grown, McCoy reveals. (The institute, incidentally, partnered with Clemson University and Gaia to develop the technology for analyzing heavy-metal concentrations in plants.)
Meanwhile, scientists have recently learned that endophytes appear to share many of the qualities of their hosts, notes McCoy. Saint John's wort produces an anti-viral agent that could fight HIV and influenza; the accompanying endophyte might share those properties and thus be quite useful in developing medicines, she explains.
With endophytes as with the Bent Creek Institute, it seems, a little collaboration can go a long way.
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When I first met Milestone Press Publisher Mary Ellen Hammond, she asked me why I wanted to write a hiking guide to the Carolina mountains. Was I hoping to make some money? The answer had better be “no,” because virtually no one makes a living this way.
Johnny Molloy, who's penned more than 30 outdoor guidebooks, says he still makes less than $30,000 a year.
But I wanted to write a guidebook because you can't really understand a place until you have to explain it to others.
So I bought a new GPS device, tested it and got ready. Equipped with a camera, the GPS clipped to my pack, a compass around my neck, and a digital recorder and notepad in my pocket, I went hiking.
On the trail
Compared with tracking a gazillion details, the actual hiking is the easy part. I take copious notes — and, trying to focus on the reader's hike, not mine — I don't mention the weather, my hiking pals or what I'm snacking on.
I stop at visitor centers to learn about local conditions, view the exhibits and talk to rangers. I write up the hikes as I do them. If I mention a side trail to a waterfall or cabin, I include that distance. All my hikes are on maintained trails: With thousands of miles of official trails here, there's no need to trespass on private land or go bushwhacking.
Jim Parham, the author of Milestone's inaugural series (Off the Beaten Track), saw a need for books on cycling in Western North Carolina. While working for the Nantahala Outdoor Center, he noted, “Folks in the store were spending a lot of time giving out advice to the many mountain bikers who were showing up in the late '80s and early '90s. People said there needed to be a mountain-bike guidebook for the area, and I wrote one.” For Jim, the best thing about writing guidebooks is having an excuse to explore new places and see things he's never seen before. “The most annoying thing about writing guidebooks is having to ride in bad weather just to get things done,” he says.
Luckily, I'm not as bothered by rain or cold, since my feet are firmly on the ground, and you can hike comfortably all year here.
Writing
At home, I download everything into my computer, holding my breath when I transfer my GPS track. Is it good? Have I marked the highlights I'm writing about, such as trail junctions, cabins or waterfalls? The boring part is listening to myself repeatedly while transcribing my notes.
Every route requires an angle. What makes this trail worth hiking? Historical home sites? Outstanding autumn flowers? A waterfall? In our mountains, flat terrain is enough to make a hike special (the Pink Beds and Laurel River, for instance). Each trail description needs to provide more than “turn left/turn right” directions, and I must avoid over-the-top superlatives (go easy on “magnificent” and “outstanding”). I try to explain what I see, and though I ask questions of everyone, I try to get the definitive answers from rangers, books and official Web sites.
After I hand my editor the text, photos and maps, she sends them back with dozens of questions I have to resolve. “I wasn't clear here,” “Joe-pye weed has a dash on page 248 but not on page 300,” and “What's the exact name of this gap?”
Marketing
Writing, though, is only part of the job. Marketing might be the other 90 percent. With each book, I've updated my Web site, sending out post cards and printed bookmarks to a huge mailing list. I wrote a personal letter announcing my book and offering to give a slide show, which I sent to more than 150 stores.
By my second book, stores were inviting me. At several events, only four readers showed up (they got a private tutorial about hiking in the WNC mountains). At others, I had standing-room-only crowds.
Often someone will flip through my book and ask, “Did you do all these hikes?” How else does one write a guidebook? They also want me to suggest easy hikes. And inevitably, I hear this question: “What's your next book going to be about?”
“What do you think it should be?” I reply.
“Easy hikes for old geezers,” most folks say. Perhaps there's some potential there ...
[Hike leader and outdoors writer Danny Bernstein is the author of Hiking North Carolina's Blue Ridge Heritage. She can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).]
