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American Botanical Council's Norman R. Farnsworth Excellence in Botanical Research Award Given to Gordon Cragg
(AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 18, 2014; updated March 25, 2014) The American
Botanical Council (ABC) recognized Gordon M. Cragg, PhD, of Bethesda, Maryland,
as the recipient of the ABC Norman R. Farnsworth Excellence in Botanical
Research Award for 2013. Dr. Cragg is a former research director of the US
National Cancer Institute (NCI), where he was involved in the NCI’s search for
new cancer medicines from plants and other natural sources. ABC presents this
award each year to a person who or an institution that has made significant
contributions to ethnobotanical and/or pharmacognostic research (i.e., research
on drugs of natural origin, usually from plants).
Dr. Cragg spent the majority of his professional career at the US National
Institutes of Health (NIH) National Cancer Institute. He was appointed chief of
the NCI’s Natural Products Branch (NPB) in 1989; he officially retired in 2004,
but has remained highly active with the department as an NIH Special Volunteer.
During his time at the NPB, Dr. Cragg received three NIH Awards of Merit for
his efforts: for his contributions to the development of the highly successful
anticancer drug Taxol and related derivative compounds; for his leadership in
establishing international collaborative research in biodiversity and natural
products drug discovery; and for his teaching contributions to NIH technology
transfer courses.
After growing up in rural South Africa, Dr. Cragg earned his BSc in chemistry
from Rhodes University in 1957. He attended the University of Oxford for a PhD
in organic chemistry, after which he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at
UCLA, focusing on the biosynthesis of plant hormones.
Throughout his career, Dr. Cragg has advocated for natural products research
and worked to protect the source materials for drug discovery. For example, Dr.
Cragg’s commitment to responsible natural products research is evident in his
work in Brazil. He contributed to the development of natural product chemistry
programs in the northeast and southeast regions of the country. Furthermore, he
played a pivotal role in an initiative to protect the country’s biodiversity
and sustainability efforts that led to the exploration of new potential
pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and agrochemical products.
Dr. Cragg was elected president of the American Society of Pharmacognosy in
1998 and subsequently became an honorary member of the society in 2003. In
2010, Dr. Cragg was presented with the William L. Brown Award for Excellence in
Genetic Resource Conservation by the Missouri Botanical Garden; during the
symposium held in honor of the award, a newly discovered Madagascan plant — Ludia
craggiana — was named for Dr. Cragg.
“Gordon Cragg is recognized around the world as a leading figure in the efforts
to discover new anticancer drugs from plants and other natural materials,” said
Mark Blumenthal, founder and executive director of ABC. “He has a reputation of
being a first-class scientist, a friendly collaborator, and an empowering
mentor to other researchers. ABC is honored to recognize Dr. Cragg with the
annual ABC Norman R. Farnsworth Excellence in Botanical Research Award.”
Numerous professional colleagues of Dr. Cragg’s were unanimous in praise of his
work and selection as the recipient of the ABC Farnsworth Award.
“Gordon’s work in this area has been groundbreaking and creative,” said Paul
Coates, PhD, director of the Office of Dietary Supplements at NIH. “I have
known Gordon personally for about 10 years, during which time we have co-edited
two editions of the Encyclopedia of Dietary Supplements along with other
distinguished colleagues. Gordon’s expertise, insight, and careful attention to
experimental detail helped to make the botanical entries in the Encyclopedia
first-rate and extremely useful.”
“Gordon Cragg has been a diplomat in the cause of plant biodiversity and honest
relations between the NCI and ‘source countries’ even before the Convention on
Biodiversity was signed,” said John Beutler, PhD, associate scientist at the
Molecular Targets Lab at the NCI and member of the ABC Advisory
Board. “His scientific knowledge and thoughtful approach have won him many
friends in many countries, and make him a very deserving choice for ABC’s
Norman R. Farnsworth Excellence in Botanical Research Award.”
“Gordon Cragg is a most worthy candidate for the ABC Norman R. Farnsworth
Award. Long a proponent of research on plants, he has always advocated doing it
the right way — proper documentation of collection and taxonomic identification
and sustainable collections,” said John Cardellina II, PhD, distinguished
scientist at the Chemistry and Technical Innovation Center of McCormick and
Co., Inc., and member of the ABC Advisory Board. “He was an early, staunch
advocate of indigenous rights and returning value to the country of origin. In
many ways, he reminds me of Professor Farnsworth — a scholar of broad academic interests
who advocated solid scientific research and quality standards for plants and
plant products consumed by humans for health benefits.”
The Excellence in Botanical Research Award’s namesake is ABC’s co-founding
Board of Trustees member, the late Professor Norman R. Farnsworth, PhD, a
research professor of pharmacognosy and senior university scholar in the
College of Pharmacy at the University of Illinois — Chicago. When Professor
Farnsworth died in 2011 at the age of 81, the global medicinal plant community
lost one of its greatest champions.
“The naming of the award after Professor Norman Farnsworth is of huge
significance to me,” wrote Dr. Cragg. “I had the pleasure and privilege of
being associated with his dynamic leadership and research in the area of drug
discovery from plants and other natural sources for well over 20 years, and his
contributions to the National Cancer Institute natural products program over
many decades were outstanding. He was truly a giant in our field of research!
“[Mark Blumenthal and his] colleagues at the American Botanical Council have
been highly effective advocates and spokespeople for the essential role played
by medicinal plants and phytomedicines in healthcare worldwide,” continued Dr.
Cragg, “and I wish to thank [Mark] and the Awards Committee of the ABC Board of
Trustees most sincerely for bestowing this tremendous honor on me. It is a
great pleasure for me to accept this prestigious award, and I feel truly
humbled to be joining the group of eminent scientists who have been previous
recipients of the award.”
Past recipients of the ABC Norman R. Farnsworth Excellence in Botanical
Research Award are highly accomplished and respected researchers from around
the world. They include the following: Joseph M. Betz, PhD, of the NIH Office
of Dietary Supplements (2005); Professor Edzard Ernst, MD, PhD, formerly of the
Peninsula Medical School at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom
(2006); Professor Hildebert Wagner, PhD, of the Institute for Pharmaceutical
Biology in Munich, Germany (2007); Dr. Ikhlas Khan of the University of
Mississippi’s National Center for Natural Products Research (2008);
Professor Rudolf Bauer, PhD, head of the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences
at the Karl-Franzens University of Graz in Austria (2009); Professor A.
Douglas Kinghorn, PhD, chair of the department of medicinal chemistry and
pharmacognosy in the College of Pharmacy at Ohio State University (2010);
Professor Djaja D. Soejarto, PhD, of the College of Pharmacy at the University
of Illinois — Chicago (2011); and Professor De-An Guo, PhD, director of
the State Engineering Laboratory for Traditional Chinese Medicine
Standardization Technology and director of the Shanghai Research Center for TCM
Modernization at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica of the Chinese
Academy of Sciences (2012).
The ABC Norman R. Farnsworth Excellence in Botanical Research Award was
presented to Dr. Cragg in absentia at the 9th Annual ABC Botanical
Celebration and Awards Ceremony on March 6 in Anaheim, California. The ABC
event occurred during the NEXT Innovation Summit (formerly Nutracon) nutrition,
natural products, and dietary supplements conference and Natural Products Expo
West.
The ABC Botanical Celebration and Awards Ceremony was underwritten by generous
contributions from the following members of the herb, dietary supplement, and
natural products industry (i.e., raw material suppliers, supplement and tea
manufacturers, analytical laboratories, a law firm, an insurer, a media
company, and a trade organization):
Alkemist Labs
Amin Talati
Christie Communications
ChromaDex
EuroPharma
Grifcon Enterprises
Horphag Research
Indena USA
Martin Bauer Group
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MegaFood
Natural Factors Nutritional Products
New Chapter
New Hope Natural Media
PlusPharma
RFI Ingredients
Traditional Medicinals
United Natural Products Alliance
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