Brigham Young University botany and range science professor Paul A. Cox is one of several "Heroes of Medicine" featured in a special issue of TIME magazine that hit newsstands Monday.

Cox, an expert on the study of medicinal plants, is featured in a section of the issue devoted to doctors, researchers and patients who are setting the pace of medical discoveries worldwide."Deliberately, none of the heroes is a Nobel Prize winner, but all of them are innovative, dedicated and hard-working people who share the common thread of traits medical scientists and doctors have shared for 2,500 years," said TIME special projects editor Barrett Seaman in a press release.

"These traits include endless curiosity, an enormous capacity to work and a willingness to defy convention," Seaman said.

Cox has received international attention for his studies of the medicinal properties of plants. He used a 1984 Presidential Young Investigator grant from the National Science Foundation to initiate his studies of the traditional methods of Samoan healers.

His work with the native healers led to documentation of several native plant extracts. One of the most promising extracts, prostratin - derived from the bark of the rain forest tree Homolanthus nutans - has been found to have strong antiviral qualities. It has also shown promise in inhibiting the growth of the HIV virus in healthy cells.

According to the TIME magazine release, Cox's research is significant in light of the fact that fewer than 100 of the world's 265,000 flowering plants have been tested for their effectiveness against disease. More than 100 U.S. companies are currently investigating medicinal plants.

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Cox's scientific studies in Samoa also led him to active participation in local environmental issues.

Last spring, he was one of only seven recipients of the worlds' top award for grass-roots environmentalism. The Goldman Environmental Prize was previously referred to by TIME as "sort of a Nobel Prize" for environmental activism. Cox and Samoan Chief Fuiono Senio were honored for their efforts to save a 3,000-acre rain forest in Western Samoa.

Cox is currently on leave from BYU, where he served as dean of General Education and Honors from 1993 to 1997. He is now completing a one-year King Carl IVI Gustaf Professorship in Environmental Science at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

Cox, a BYU alumnus, received a doctoral degree from Harvard University and completed a research fellowship at the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science at the University of California-Berkeley before joining the BYU faculty in 1983.

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