Bringing Pharmacists’ Expertise to the Fight to Save Wild Ecosystems

By: Toni Shears

From the coasts of Maine to Chile and Argentina, avian influenza (H5N1) has killed tens of thousands of seals and sea lions. Green sea turtles are getting cancer, and bats are dying from fungal infections.

Animals — including critically endangered species — are dying at staggering rates. Stressed and sickened by global warming, pollution, habitat loss, over-harvesting, and more, their weakened immune systems are making wildlife disease more apparent,

But these species don’t have to die, says Timothy Cernak, Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the College of Pharmacy. The same medications used to cure human illness can treat animals in the wild. And pharmacists, with their advanced knowledge of medicinal chemistry, drug efficacy, and precision dosing, have a role to play in conserving species on the brink, he argues.

“We are in the middle of a mass extinction. My lab is chasing mass die-offs around the world to understand where medicine can help,” Cernak says. “Modern bioscience has brought us an arsenal of effective drugs for treating human disease that offers hope for treating endangered species in the wild, too.”

The problem is that too often, conservationists who are desperately trying to save dwindling animal populations with drugs designed for humans may be taking a shot in the dark. With so little data available, they may not know which drug will work best, what the right dosage might be, or if a drug may cause side effects in an exotic species.

That’s why Cernak is advocating for the recognition of conservation chemistry – bringing medicinal chemistry to the forefront, using modern high-throughput drug discovery tools, and giving pharmacists a seat at the table to save endangered species.

Since 2020, he has been building relationships with conservationists all over the world who are working to treat ailing fauna and flora. Through them, he collects samples from sickened species. Using AI, machine learning models, and robotics to drive high-throughput experiments, his lab tests compounds on the samples to see which ones are active against the disease-causing organism in plants and animals, and safest for the host organism.

In April 2024, he was part of a team that won a grant from the University of Michigan’s “Meet the Moment” research initiative, to advance efforts to develop effective treatments for fungal infections in endangered species — specifically, frogs and bats.

Cernak calls the Panamanian Golden frog “the poster child for conservation chemistry.”A fungus attacked the frog population and it is now extinct in the wild but the Smithsonian Institute has led an effort to keep it alive in zoos and labs. The Smithsonian team, led by Brian Gratwicke, has been successfully treating the frogs with the antifungal drug itraconazole. Getting the dosage right is tricky since most information is based on prescriptions for domestic animals, like dogs and cats. Cernak’s lab is working with the Smithsonian and collaborator Tim James of the University of Michigan, to define a more precise dosing strategy tailored to frogs.

Creating Conservation Chemistry

Cernak’s advocacy for the creation of this new field is in its early stages, yet it is gaining steam as he is being called on regularly to bring his expertise to major conservation organizations. “We aim to save creatures as small as a tadpole threatened by a fungus and as mighty as a hemlock tree”, says Cernak. The majestic hemlock – state tree of Pennsylvania – is threatened by an invasive insect. Cernak is working with foresters to identify precision insecticide treatments to stave off fatal insect infestations. After all, trees are what provide us with the oxygen we need to survive.

A core challenge remains that conservationists are desperate to save a species, but conservation work falls chronically short on funding, so often turning to the cheapest drug available is the only option. There are risks to doing this. For a recent example, sea turtles are increasingly washing up on beaches in Florida with a cancer called fibropapillomatosis. They can sometimes be treated with bleomycin, but this is an old cancer drug known for causing lung damage. “Doctors who prescribe this drug in humans often advise their patients not to go scuba diving because fibrosis in the lungs is a common side effect. That’s kind of a bummer for a sea turtle,” Cernak points out. As we are living in a golden era of cancer medicine, better options should be available. Cernak is working with conservationists to plug into the U-M Center for Drug Repurposing to find safer alternatives.

One World, One Health

Humans, animals, and plants coexist in a delicate, codependent balance, and when we damage one part of the ecosystem, all parts suffer. Maintaining healthy animal and plant populations is critical because their health is inextricably linked to our health and well-being, Cernak argues. Interventions must carefully balance the risks and benefits at the intersection of human, animal, and environmental health — a holistic, global approach the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention refers to as One Health. This is the driving idea behind Cernak’s work.

Understanding animal illness in the wild could help us prevent or manage a future pandemic, he notes. Whether COVID-19 spilled over from infected bats or not, coronaviruses in the wild informed our early understanding of the virus. The same can be said for other viral, bacterial, fungal, or parasitic infections that are driving extinctions around the globe.

Illness in the plant and animal kingdoms also affects our food chain, as seen in early 2023 when poultry producers culled more than 40 million chickens to control avian flu. New outbreaks are increasingly reported, including recent detections in dairy cattle, which will likely impact our milk supplies. Highly pathogenic H5N1 has migrated from seabirds to kill thousands of seals and sea lions. While H5N1 is less able to jump to humans than other flu strains, the diversity of species it is currently infecting is alarming, Cernak states.

Cernak acknowledges there are ethical questions about whether you should treat animals in the wild; conservationists must move cautiously due to unknown risks of introducing new harms. Just as human actions have led to environmental degradation that has harmed countless species, trying to save animal species has risks that must be carefully navigated with feedback from many stakeholders.

However, he says, the notion of letting nature take its course is outdated. Zoos, which are major drivers of global conservation efforts, are already serving as hospitals for critically endangered animals. “It’s time to bring our advanced biomedical science into play and give wild animals cutting-edge care.”

As for treating wild species when so many humans struggle to get basic care, Cernak argues that it is not a zero-sum game. “It’s not taking away from human healthcare; we’re not investing to invent a new medicine or take medicines away from humans who are in need of them. We are repurposing what we already have to help the whole ecosystem of our planet. Conservation medicine likely requires the costs of developing a drug to be dramatically reduced, and AI and high-throughput experimentation are already driving in this direction. We can take better care of people, animals and our environment. That’s the One Health mission.”  A renaissance in drug development could dramatically alter the landscape of healthcare. “AI driven medicine will rewrite the economics of treatment to be agnostic of income and maybe even agnostic of species.” he notes.

Medicinal Chemistry Gone Wild?

The benefits humans derive from nature are well-known; it’s estimated that roughly half of the medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration are based on bioactive chemicals found in natural sources. Evidence suggests that plants and microorganisms evolved biochemical processes to defend and heal themselves, and scientists are drawing lessons from how plants and animals adapt and defend themselves from environmental stresses. We benefit from these adaptations and can return the benefits to the natural world, Cernak says.

Bringing pharmacists and chemists to the table to support the mission of One Health, alongside conservationists, veterinarians, biologists, and botanists is a driving passion for Cernak. It’s one reason he left a lucrative position in the pharmaceutical industry to pursue a wide-ranging, boundary-breaking research agenda. He is actively building collaborative relationships and seeking support to fund work in this area.

“It is a new field, a new mission, and I believe bringing together wildlife and medication expertise will help protect our entire ecosystem” says Cernak. To learn more, see his recently published perspective Medicinal Chemistry Gone Wild, in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

Additionally, Cernak was recently featured on an episode of Stateside on NPR Michigan Public outlining the role he thinks pharmacists can play in decreasing plant and animal extinctions. Cernak was also recently featured on the Michigan Minds Podcast, outlining his work on bringing better medicine to sick and dying species.