Biodiversity loss and species extinction may lead to losing new medical treatments for cancer, osteoporosis and other ailments, experts warned Wednesday citing the findings of a coming book.

Earth’s organisms offer a variety of naturally made chemical compounds further used to develop new medicines, but they are under threat of extinction, according to Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, the Associated Press reports.

“We must do something about what is happening to biodiversity. We must help society understand how much we already depend on diversity of life to run our economies, our lives, but more importantly, what are we losing in terms of future potential,” Steiner told reporters during a news conference.

The book “Sustaining Life” is based on the work of more than 100 experts and is supported by various organizations including the UNEP, Steiner said. Its key authors are based at Harvard Medical School’s Center for Health and the Global Environment.

They warn that more than 16,000 known species are threatened with extinction, but the number could be higher.

“Societies depend on nature for treating diseases. Health systems over human history have their foundation on animal and plant products that are used for treatment.” 

The book was previewed during the Business for the Environment Summit in Singapore. About 600 business executives and environment experts took part in the two-day conference, which ended Wednesday.

“Because of science and technology … we are in a much better position to unlock this ingenuity of nature found in so many species. Yet, in many cases, we will find that we have already lost it before we were able to use it,” Steiner said. 

To exemplify the book’s idea, he mentioned the example of a southern gastric brooding frog, discovered in Australian rain forests in the ‘80s.

The female frog raises her young in her stomach. Preliminary studies showed that the baby frogs produced substances that protect them from their mother’s digestive enzymes and acids — and could have led to insights on treating human peptic ulcers, Steiner said.

The frog has become extinct, however, according to the book. According to the book’s authors, Eric Chivian and Aaron Berstein, the research on gastric brooding frogs could have led to new insights into preventing and treating human peptic ulcers, which affect 25 million people in the U.S. alone.

“But these studies could not be continued because both species of Rheobactrachus became extinct, and the valuable medical secrets they held are now gone forever,” they said. 

And the examples of threatened groups of organisms go on in the book with amphibians, bears, cone snails, sharks, nonhuman primates, gymnosperms and horseshoe crabs.

Nearly one-third of the approximately 6,000 known amphibian species are threatened with extinction. Also nine species of bear are also under the same threat, including the polar bear, Giant Panda and the Asiatic Black bear.

“Many bears are at risk because they are killed for body parts, such as gall bladders, which can command high prices in black markets in places like China, Japan and Thailand,” the report said.