https://phys.org/news/2018-10-bioactive-compounds-endangered-tropical-species.html

In the late 1980s and 1990s, the Natural Products Branch (NPB) of the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI, Frederick, MD) supported the collection of about 80,000 plant samples from tropical areas in the Americas, Africa and Southeast Asia. Extracts from about 3,000 species displayed significant antiproliferative activities at a concentration of 20 μg/mL and 70 percent of these active species originated from either rainforests or their adjacent areas. Despite the importance of rainforest plants for drug discovery, unfortunately these valuable regions are declining due to climate change, and industrial and economic development, resulting in an extinction crisis for many plant species.

The rainforest plant Alangium longiflorum Merr. (Cornaceae) is threatened with extinction and is currently on the Red List of Threatened Species created by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). A crude organic extract from the leaves of A. longiflorum displayed broad cytotoxicity with more specific antiproliferative effects against the growth of leukemic cell lines in the NCI-60 human tumor cell line panel. A collaborative phytochemical and biological study on this extract as a resource of anticancer leads was conducted by a research group at Kanazawa University and the NPB of the NCI.