Officials at the National Tropical Botanical Gardens in Kalaheo announced yesterday the organization’s executive director, Dr. Paul Alan Cox, will be taking sabbatical leave starting Aug. 1 to pursue research in neurological diseases. Chipper Wichman, the current director of NTBG’s
Officials at the National Tropical Botanical Gardens in Kalaheo announced yesterday the organization’s executive director, Dr. Paul Alan Cox, will be taking sabbatical leave starting Aug. 1 to pursue research in neurological diseases.
Chipper Wichman, the current director of NTBG’s Limahuli Garden in Ha’ena, has been selected to serve as acting director.
Cox is scheduled to return to NTBG on December 2004. In the intervening period, Cox said he will be involved with field work on Guam and conducting laboratory work elsewhere.
Cox’s research has focused on the high rate of a neurological disease among Chamorros on Guam, a U.S. territory in the Northern Marianas. Known as ALS-PDC, the disease has aspects of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Lou Gehrig’s diseases.
In a paper published in Neurology, Cox and another scientist have suggested that a neurotoxin in the Chamorro diet is the cause of the disease.
Since that time, Cox and a team of scientists at the NTBG Institute of Ethnobotany have tentatively identified the molecule responsible for the disease, the NTBG news release stated.
“Our research took such a promising turn that our trustees (of the National Tropical Botanical Gardens) granted me the opportunity to devote my full time to further this work,” Cox said in the news release.
Wichman was not immediately available for comment, but he said in a news release that taking on his new duties was exciting and was an “honor.”
“The work that is being done at NTBG is critically important to preserving our heritage for future generations,” Wichman said. “It is with great enthusiasm that I accepted this appointment.”
In his new capacity, Wichman will be responsible for running the three Kaua’i botanical gardens of the NTBG. Cox has decribed the McBryde, Allerton and Limahuli gardens as being among the most beautiful gardens in the world.
NTBG also operates two gardens on Maui and in southeast Florida, respectively, and two preserves on the Big Island.
Wichman has led Limahuli Gardens for more than 20 years. For the last five years as well, he has served as director of NTBG’s garden on Maui.
As head of the Limahuli Gardens, Wichman has been credited with a model program of land stewardship based on the Hawaiian ahupua’a system.
The garden boasts rare plants set among terraced lands built by ancient Hawaiians to grow taro. The gardens is open for public tours.
The restoration of ecosystems at the gardens and the rescue and preservation of endangered plants is the focus of the conservation program at the garden.
NTBG was created by Congress in 1964, and its chief goals are to take care of “gardens of extraordinary beauty and historical significance,” and advance scientific research, public education and plant conservation. NTBG is a not-for-profit organization funded by donations.
Staff writer Lester Chang can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net
