THE LOSS of plant and animal species will affect our everyday lives in ways we could never imagine, the annual public outreach lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons heard last night.
Harvard Medical School scientist and paediatrician Dr Aaron Bernstein told the audience that human health depended “in every conceivable way” on the diversity of life present on earth.
He said two-thirds of all new drugs licensed in the US from 1981 to 2006 would not exist if they hadn’t been found in, or patterned after, compounds that nature designed. All scientists relied on organisms for breakthroughs in biomedical research, he said.
Dr Bernstein said that the majority of emerging infectious diseases affected other species before they affected humans. He cited the example of Sars disease which originated with bats in China, who had lost their habitat and moved to find food elsewhere.
Dr Bernstein said that because of our urban lifestyles, it had become all too easy to believe that we were somehow separated from the rest of nature and were immune from the effects of the degradation of the planet.
Some experts believed that as many as 50 per cent of species alive today would be lost by 2100 if the loss of species and habitats was not halted, he said. This rate of loss matched the loss evident in the earth’s last great extinction event 65 million years ago.
Dr Bernstein has regularly highlighted the threat to coral reefs due to rising ocean temperatures and acidity caused by increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. “If we lose corals, we may foreclose on one of, if not the most important group of species on the planet for medicine and biomedical science.”
The annual outreach lecture is organised by the college to promote an awareness and interest in research and science to the wider community.
