We are excited that Jamaican scientist Dr. Henry Lowe, and an American colleague, Dr. Joseph Bryant, are working on developing a drug, using two plants endemic to the island, which show great promise in fighting a range of cancers.

Dr. Lowe, understandably, is reluctant to identify the plants given the need, at this time, for industrial secrecy. Indeed, it would be relatively easy for big firms, if they have the information and in the absence of adequate patent protection by Dr. Lowe, to throw money into a research and development project to bring a rival drug to market.

This, of course, raises a number of critical issues for Jamaica, two of which are immediate: one is our approach to science and technology, and the other is financing research and development (R&D).

It is unfortunate, we believe, that up to now we have been unable to make science and technology popular in Jamaica. People like Dr. Lowe, a biochemist, have for decades fought to place science on the national agenda. Even when such efforts were hardly noted, Dr. Lowe contributed a science column to this newspaper. However, the society continues to perceive scientists as largely people who live in North America and Europe and decidedly do not look or sound like Jamaicans.

Through the efforts of the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the Scientific Research Council and the Government's National Council on Science and Technology, that may be changing; but all too slowly. Perhaps we can build excitement around Dr. Lowe's research to promote a popular embrace of science and technology.

However, any such programme, as well as the translation of initial research into marketable products, require money. Indeed, nearly three decades ago two Jamaican scientists, Manley West and Albert Lockhart, developed two drugs, Canasol, for glaucoma, and later Asmosol, for asthma and coughs, whose active ingredients are from the marijuana plant. Those drugs have not had the international breakthrough that might otherwise have been the case because West and Lockhart, wanting to keep the endeavours essentially Jamaican, did not hand them over to one of the pharmaceutical giants, which might have spent hundreds of millions in their development and promotion.

We might not be able to compete with the developed world, but it seems to us it is time that more effort and attention be focused on R&D in Jamaica, including how such efforts can be funded.

By and large, financing for R&D is non-existent in most Jamaican firms, so little takes place in the private sector. There is this sense that R&D is beyond us and that whatever is needed can be bought off the shelf.

As West and Lockhart found out so long ago, and Lowe is facing now, there is not much money around to bring projects from the laboratory to the supermarket shelves. Dr. Lowe has, up to now, been spending mostly his own money.

Earlier in the decade, the Science and Technology Minister, Phillip Paulwell, promised a $100 million R&D fund, but he has not recently reported on the venture and whether anyone has taken up the offer. It is, perhaps, timely that we revisit the issue and consider how the public and private sectors may partner to develop a venture capital scheme for R&D projects. Clearly, creative thinking is not beyond Jamaicans.