'Javari valley is home to about 6,000 Indigenous residents from seven peoples, who share it with at least 16 voluntarily isolated Indigenous groups, a higher concentration than anywhere else in the world"
Worm's eye view
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"the world needs to understand how the riches and knowledge in the forest make it infinitely more valuable long term than if turned into dry, unproductive cattle pasture"
"In the 1960s, while based in a university in Ribeirão Preto in south-east Brazil, scientist Sérgio Henrique Ferreira was able to
isolate a peptide from the venom of the jararaca snake.
He later worked in the UK where his colleague John Vane and other scientists used that peptide to develop the active ingredient in captopril,
the first angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor, whose effects on blood pressure mimicked those of the snake’s venom.
This led to the development of drugs to treat high blood pressure and heart failure. Vane later won a Nobel prize for his work – and Sérgio Ferreira was at the ceremony.
The discovery is regarded as one of the most important breakthroughs in the treatment of heart problems
and Ferreira was inducted into the prestigious Brazilian Academy of Science in 1984. He died in 2016."
"How many more life-saving peptides might there be in the Amazon? Nobody knows because most of the region’s species are still undiscovered"
Adapted from How to Save the Amazon: A Journalist’s Deadly Quest for Answers,
by Dom Phillips and contributors, published by Bonnier books on 27 May.
To support the Guardian, order a copy from Guardianbookshop.com
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