(AUSTIN, Texas, April 30, 2015) The nonprofit American Botanical Council (ABC) welcomes 13 new expert
members to its
Advisory Board. The addition of these distinguished
individuals, six of whom are from outside the United States, represents
ABC’s continued goal of expanding its international relationships and
educational impact. They join 127 existing members, including 32
international experts. The new members will bring their perspectives and
experiences from numerous scientific fields related to the study of
medicinal plants, including ethnobotany, pharmacognosy, phytotherapy,
pharmacy, organic and biochemistry, natural products research, and more.
“We are deeply grateful to these highly qualified new members of the
ABC Advisory Board for their willingness to engage formally with ABC and
help us promote our nonprofit educational mission,” said Mark
Blumenthal, founder and executive director of ABC. “These people
constitute some of the leading experts in their respective fields and
their active association with ABC will help ensure the high quality,
accurate, and reliable educational information for which ABC is known.”
ABC Advisory Board members generously volunteer their time to peer review articles that appear in
HerbalGram, HerbalEGram, HerbClips, and various other peer-reviewed ABC publications. Additionally, ABC management and
HerbalGram
editors seek feedback and advice from Advisory Board members on
research questions, article ideas, ABC policies, and book reviews, among
many other topics.
“One of the most exciting aspects of the
work at ABC is to have this unique network of experts in the many
aspects of botanical medicine available,” noted Stefan Gafner, PhD,
ABC’s chief science officer. “The breadth of knowledge that the new
members will bring to ABC is extraordinary, and I am looking forward to a
closer interaction with this talented group of individuals with
expertise in traditional use, clinical studies, molecular biology,
formulation, chemical analysis, and regulatory aspects of medicinal
plants.”
The newest ABC Advisory Board members are the following:
Valerie Assinewe, PhD, has
consulted on projects for the Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge
Subcommittee, a branch of the Committee on the Status of Endangered
Wildlife in Canada. Fluent in English, French, and Ojibwa, Dr. Assinewe
conducts research on indigenous plants with traditional uses in Canada,
including cherry birch, American ginseng, and eleuthero. She previously
worked at Health Canada’s Natural Health Products Directorate for 10
years, developing monographs and labeling standards for natural health
products and reviewing product license applications to determine safety
and efficacy. She has given many presentations about the role of First
Nation traditional knowledge in pharmacology and biology, and her
articles have been published in a number of journals including
Phytochemistry,
Biodiversity, and the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Dr. Assinewe is a member of the Sagamok Anishnawbek First Nation.
Alan Bensoussan, PhD, DipAc, is the director of the
University of Western Sydney’s Australian National Institute of
Complementary Medicine. From 2008 to 2011, he was a member of the
National Medicines Policy Committee, and from 2012 to 2014 he served as
chair of the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration’s Advisory
Committee for Complementary Medicines. Dr. Bensoussan’s awards and
accolades include the Complementary Medicines Australia's (formerly the
Complementary Healthcare Council of Australia) Lady Cilento Award (2014)
and the International Award for Contribution to Chinese Medicine
(2013), which is awarded by the Chinese government. An expert in
traditional Chinese medicine, Dr. Bensoussan’s research and publications
helped to establish Australia’s regulation of Chinese medicine
practitioners. He is the author of two books and his work has appeared
in a number of respected journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Chantal Bergeron, PhD, is the manager of research
and development for home and personal care products at Seventh
Generation. Previously, Dr. Bergeron spent 13 years as director of
research at Tom’s of Maine, where she developed novel plant-based
materials for oral, body care, and self-care products. Her innovative
work has led to the development of hops and olive leaf extract as
deodorant and antiperspirant ingredients. Dr. Bergeron attended graduate
school at Laval University in Quebec City, Canada, and the University
of Lausanne in Switzerland; her post-doctorate work was completed at the
University of Ottawa. She has received four Technology Innovation Fund
grants from Colgate-Palmolive, holds numerous patents, and has authored
or co-authored 25 scientific papers. Bergeron is a member of American
Society of Pharmacognosy and the Society for Medicinal Plant and Natural
Product Research (GA).
Nadja Cech, PhD, is an Associate Professor of
Chemistry at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Greensboro. In 2001,
Dr. Cech completed her PhD in analytical chemistry at the University of
New Mexico, where she studied electrospray ionization mass
spectrometry. Her research at UNC Greensboro over the past 13 years has
focused on the synergistic biological activities of components of
botanical extracts and the development of analytical methods to address
such complex interactions. These research efforts have been funded in
part by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health
(formerly the National Center for Complementary and Alternative
Medicine). Dr. Cech received the Jack L. Beal Award for Best Paper in
the Journal of Natural Products by a Young Investigator in
2011, the UNC Greensboro Junior Research Excellence Award in 2010, and
the UNC Greensboro College Teaching Award in 2008. To date, Dr. Cech has
published more than 30 peer-reviewed scientific papers.
Zoë Gardner has served as the Research and
Development Manager for the herbal wellness tea company Traditional
Medicinals since 2012. She completed a master’s degree and is finishing a
doctoral program in plant and soil sciences — focusing on the
cultivation, conservation, and quality of medicinal plants — at the
University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Gardner served as the program
coordinator and a research fellow for the University’s medicinal plant
program from 2000 to 2006 and from 2007 to 2010, respectively. She has
co-authored more than a dozen scientific journal articles and is the
Research Editor of the American Herbal Products Association’s Botanical Safety Handbook,
2nd ed., probably the most current and comprehensive review of the
safety issues related to herbs and medicinal plants that are available
in commerce in the United States
Gabriel Giancaspro, PhD, is vice president of the
Foods, Dietary Supplements, and Herbal Medicines Division of the United
States Pharmacopeia (USP). He earned his pharmacy degree and doctorate
in medicinal chemistry from the University of Buenos Aires and spent 17
years teaching and researching medicinal chemistry, drug stability, and
drug analysis at the University’s School of Pharmacy. Dr. Giancaspro has
served in leadership positions for several companies — including
Rigecin, Schwabe-Argentina, and Kampel-Martian — where he was
responsible for regulatory affairs, analytical research and development,
and quality control of herbal medicines. He joined USP in 1995 as a
visiting scientist and later became the director for dietary supplements
in USP’s Documentary Standards Division, the division charged with
developing monographs for herbal dietary supplements. Dr. Giancaspro is a
member of AOAC International and was an editorial board member of the Journal of AOAC International.
Joerg Gruenwald, PhD, is Founder and Chief
Scientific Advisor of Analyze & Realize GmbH in Berlin, Germany, a
specialized research and consulting company for natural health products,
phytomedicines, functional foods, dietary supplements, and other
natural medicinal items. Previously, he served as co-founder and board
member of InQPharm and chief scientific officer of Biotropics Malaysia.
He has authored and edited 13 books, including Physician's Desk Reference for Herbal Medicines, Plant-Based Ingredients for Functional Foods, and acted as a co-editor of the American Botanical Council’s The Complete German Commission E Monographs,
as well as over 300 scientific articles. He has worked as advisor to
the Office of Dietary Supplements at the U.S. National Institutes of
Health, is on the International Advisory Board of the Research Council
for Complementary Medicine, was chairman of the American Herbal Products
Association’s International Committee, is a member of the Council for
Responsible Nutrition’s Botanical/Quality Standards Committee, and a
member of the Ad Hoc Group on Botanicals of the United States
Pharmacopeia (USP).
Pierre Selim Haddad, PhD, is director of the Natural
Health Products and Metabolic Diseases Laboratory and director of the
Research Team in Aboriginal Antidiabetic Medicines in the pharmacology
department at the Université de Montréal in Quebec, Canada. He received
his PhD in pharmacology from the Université de Montréal in 1986, after
earning his bachelor’s degree in physiology from McGill University in
1981. In 1992, Dr. Haddad was the recipient of the Young Physiologist
Award from the Association des Physiologistes. In 2014, he received the
Natural Health Products Research Society’s Neil Towers “Pride of Burma”
Award. He served as an expert policy advisor for Health Canada’s Natural
Health Products Directorate, as a research consultant and coordinator
for the Lucie and André Chagnon Foundation, and as an expert policy
advisor for Environment Canada’s Office of Biodiversity. He sits on the
scientific advisory board of the Institute of Aboriginal Peoples’ Health
of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research since 2009.
James Harnly, PhD, is an analytical chemist with
expertise in atomic and molecular spectroscopy and more than 40 years of
experience with industry and government organizations. He has served as
the research leader for the Food Composition and Methods Development
Laboratory at the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center — a
division of the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research
Service — since 1997, where he is developing new analytical methods for
the identification of compounds in botanical products. To date, Dr.
Harnly has authored more than 130 peer-reviewed papers, 18 technical
reports and book chapters, and holds two patents. He was the editor of
the Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry for 22 years, and
is a member of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy, American Society
for Nutrition, American Society for Mass Spectrometry, and AOAC
International, for which he served as board president from 2013 to 2014.
Michael Heinrich, Dr. rer. nat. habil, M.A., Dipl. Biol, FLS, is
a pharmaceutical biologist/pharmacognosist and anthropologist with
multidisciplinary research interests including medicinal and food plant
research, particularly bioactive natural products, as well as the
interface of cultural and natural sciences on the traditional use of
food and medicinal plants, primarily in Mexico and the Mediterranean. He
currently is the head of the research cluster “Biodiversity and
Medicines” and professor at the UCL School of Pharmacy in the United
Kingdom. He is also the editor in chief of Frontiers in Ethnopharmacology, reviews editor for Journal of Ethnopharmacology,
and a member of the editorial board for a wide range of journals in the
area of medicinal plant research. Previously, he was the founding
director of Southern Cross Plant Science program at Southern Cross
University in Lismore, Australia. He is also the co-author or editor of
six books, including the second edition of Fundamentals of Pharmacognosy and Phytotherapy and Phytopharmacy: An Evidence-Based Guide to Herbal Medicinal Products (April 2015).
Andrea Ottesen, PhD, is the research area
coordinator for metagenomics in the Molecular Methods and Subtyping
Branch of the Division of Microbiology at the US Food and Drug
Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, focusing
on microbial ecology and metagenomics of high-risk crops. She is also an
adjunct assistant professor for the Department of Plant Science and
Landscape Architecture at the University of Maryland and spent many
years as a botanical research technician at the Jim Duke Green Farmacy
Gardens doing medicinal plant research. In her position as adjunct
assistant professor, she co-taught “Medicinal Plants of the Amazon” with
Dr. Jim Duke in the Peruvian Amazon. She currently mentors graduate and
undergraduate research teams. Dr. Ottesen has given many presentations
regarding her work and research around the world.
Guido Pauli, PhD, FAPA, has belonged to the College
of Pharmacy at the University of Illinois in Chicago since 2001, when he
joined the faculty as a research professor for the Institute for
Tuberculosis Research. He became a member in full standing of the
graduate faculty in 2002 as an assistant professor at the Department of
Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, advanced to the rank of professor
in 2012, and was named University Scholar in 2014. He teaches
pharmacognosy and pharmaceutical biology in addition to advising
graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. He has served as a member
for panels and work groups for the National Center for Complementary and
Integrative Health (formerly the National Center for Complementary and
Alternative Medicine), part of the National Institutes of Health, since
2006, and the United States Pharmacopeia (USP), since 2010. He is the
associate editor of Chinese Herbal Medicines and has served on
the editorial boards and as peer reviewer for several English- and
Spanish-language phytomedicine publications.
Alain Touwaide, PhD, is an expert in ancient
Mediterranean botany with a focus on medicinal plants. He has served as
scientific director of the Institute for the Preservation of Medical
Traditions since 2007 and has been a Smithsonian Institution research
associate since 2011. Dr. Touwaide earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and
doctoral degrees from the University of Louvain in Belgium. Over the
course of his career, he has been a fellow at the Dumbarton Oaks Center
for Byzantine Studies, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow at the University
of Oklahoma, a scholar-in-residence at the National Library of
Medicine, and a visiting professor at universities around the world. He
is the author/coauthor of eight books and numerous books chapters,
essays, and scholarly papers. In 2014, he received a prize from the
International Society for the History of Medicine honoring his
outstanding contribution to the history of medicine, and was elected
Fellow of the International Academy of the History of Science for his
life-long dedication to the discipline.