|
|
|
|
Prof. Harry H.S. Fong Receives ABC's Norman R. Farnsworth Excellence in Botanical Research Award
(AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 27, 2015) The
American Botanical Council (ABC) announces Professor Harry H.S. Fong, PhD, as
the recipient of the ABC Norman R. Farnsworth Excellence in Botanical Research
Award for 2014. Dr. Fong — a close friend and collaborator of Prof. Farnsworth
for almost 60 years — is professor emeritus of pharmacognosy in the Department
of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy at the University of Illinois –
Chicago (UIC). 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).
Throughout his long career in academia, Dr. Fong has focused his research
efforts on collaborative drug discovery from plants, particularly those with
active antitumor, cancer chemopreventative, antimalarial, and anti-tuberculosis
activities. Dr. Fong also has been dedicated to the quality, analysis, and
standardization of herbal medicines and botanical dietary supplements
worldwide, collaborating with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Traditional
and Complementary Medicine Programme for 30 years and “working with the Hong
Kong Health Department for the past 13 years on its ongoing setting of
pharmacopeial quality standards for Chinese herbal materials commercially
available in Hong Kong.”
To date, Dr. Fong has authored more than 270 scientific journal articles,
co-authored nine book chapters, and edited 16 scientific publications,
including multiple WHO medicinal plant monographs.
“Being named the recipient of the ABC Norman R. Farnsworth Excellence in
Botanical Research Award for 2014 is a unique honor,” stated Dr. Fong. “To be
invited to join the company of a small, select group of internationally recognized
botanical medicine researchers is very humbling.”
Dr.
Fong first met Prof. Farnsworth in 1955 at the University of Pittsburgh’s
School of Pharmacy, where Dr. Fong was a first-year pharmacy student and Prof.
Farnsworth was an instructor and PhD student of pharmacognosy. “Subsequently, I
became his first graduate student in 1959,” noted Dr. Fong. After Dr. Fong
completed his own PhD in pharmacognosy at Ohio State University in 1965, he
returned to the University of Pittsburgh, where he worked with Prof. Farnsworth
as a research assistant professor.
The late Professor Norman R. Farnsworth, PhD — the Excellence in Botanical
Research Award’s namesake — was one of ABC’s co-founding Board of Trustees
members, a research professor of pharmacognosy, and a senior university scholar
in the College of Pharmacy at UIC. When Professor Farnsworth died in 2011 at
the age of 81, the global medicinal plant community lost one of its greatest
champions.
“Norman Farnsworth and I were best friends on the personal level, and were
research and academic collaborators/partners professionally,” explained Dr.
Fong. “To say that Norm had impacted my career and my life is an
understatement. … Norman convinced me that my life would be more fulfilling as
an underpaid academic, rather than a rich pharmacist. The rest, as they say, is
history.”
“Harry Fong has made many significant contributions in the fields of drug
discovery from botanical materials, the quality control of botanical dietary
supplements and traditional herbal medicines, and in setting standards for
herbal medicines worldwide,” said ABC Chief Science Officer, Stefan Gafner,
PhD, who did post-doctoral research at UIC from 1998 to 1999. “He is internationally
recognized as an expert in herbal medicine and one of the most highly regarded
pharmacognosists of our time.”
“Dr. Fong’s ability to encourage and inspire collaborative research from
world-renowned scientists is second to no one's,” noted Natural Products
Association CEO Daniel Fabricant, PhD, and former director of Dietary
Supplement Programs at the US Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Fabricant
received his PhD from Prof. Farnsworth at UIC and Prof. Fong was a member of
his thesis committee. “Fong played a huge role in expanding the program at UIC
into the best in the world, leaving no details to chance, then repeated that
success with the WHO program and countless others. What makes this amazing is
that in addition to growing those programs, Dr. Fong was also responsible for
the students in the Medicinal Chemistry/Pharmacognosy program at UIC, often
serving as an advisor on everything outside of the dissertation. [H]ow he was
able to balance those roles and so many others, is a wonder to this day.”
Dr. Fong has received numerous awards and has served the botanical research
community through a number of leadership positions. In the late 1970s, Dr. Fong
was the president of the American Society of Pharmacognosy, after which he
became president of the Society for Economic Botany from 1981 to 1982. He was
the recipient of the Ohio State University College of Pharmacy’s 1997 Jack L.
Beal Post-Baccalaureate Alumnae Award as well as the Natural Products
Association’s 2008 Burton Kallman Scientific Award. Dr. Fong also is a charter
and honorary member of the American Society of Pharmacognosy, a member of the
WHO Expert Panel on Traditional Medicine since 1997, and serves on multiple
scientific advisory boards for universities around the world.
“Harry has been a key member of major collaborative research programs aimed at
the discovery of compounds from terrestrial plants having potential as leads
for the development of novel agents for the treatment of a range of serious
diseases such as cancer, malaria, and tuberculosis,” noted Gordon M. Cragg,
PhD, former chief of the Natural Products Branch of the National Cancer
Institute and 2013 recipient of the ABC Farnsworth Award. “Added to this
important research, he has also had a major impact on botanical research
through the application of his extensive knowledge and expertise to the
standardization and quality control of herbal medicines and botanical dietary
supplements.”
“Harry Fong and Norman Farnsworth collaborated closely for many decades in
advancing botanical research,” added Dr. Cragg, “and it is most fitting that
Dr. Fong’s outstanding achievements be recognized with this award named in
honor of his longtime colleague and friend.”
“Harry is a dynamic researcher and advocate for natural product research and
the responsible use of quality medicinal plant materials,” said ABC Founder and
Director Mark Blumenthal. “He and Prof. Farnsworth were almost inseparable and
it is highly fitting that ABC acknowledge and honor not only his loyal
friendship and academic relationship with Norm, but also his many excellent
contributions to the medicinal plant research community.”
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 UIC (2011);
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); and Gordon M. Cragg,
PhD, former chief of the Natural Products Branch of the US National Cancer
Institute (2013).
The
ABC Norman R. Farnsworth Excellence in Botanical Research Award will be
presented to Dr. Fong in absentia at the 10th Annual ABC
Botanical Celebration and Awards Ceremony on March 5 in Anaheim, California.
Dr. Fabricant will accept the award on behalf of Dr. Fong. The event, for ABC
Sponsor Members, occurs during the NEXT Innovation Summit nutrition, natural
products, and dietary supplements conference and Natural Products Expo West.
The
ABC Botanical Celebration and Awards Ceremony is underwritten by generous
contributions from the following members of the herb, dietary supplement, and
natural products industry:
Alkemist Labs Amin Talati &
Upadhye ChromaDex EuroPharma Horphag Research Indena USA Martin Bauer Group MegaFood | Natural Factors Nutritional Products New Chapter
New Hope Natural Media PlusPharma RFI Ingredients Ryan Turner Specialty Traditional Medicinals United Natural
Products Alliance |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|