Faculty
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UIC / Supplements Research | |
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Core A – Administration | |
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Professor Norman R. Farnsworth, Center Director Farnsworth, Norman R.: Research Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, UIC Distinguished Professor, Director of the Pharmacognosy Graduate Program, and Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Traditional Medicine, Ph.D. (1959) University of Pittsburgh Research interests: 1. Botanical, chemical, biological and clinical studies on dietary supplements for women's health.
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Professor Richard B van Breemen, Center Co-Director (See Project 3) van Breemen, Richard B.: Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Co- Director of the UIC/NIH Center for Dietary Supplements Research, and Assistant to the Director of the Research Resources Center, Ph.D. (1985) The Johns Hopkins University Research interests: Biomedical applications of tandem mass spectrometry (MS-MS) and HPLC-MS-MS including the discovery and development of botanical natural products for cancer chemoprevention and women's health. We are using mass spectrometry in all aspects of drug discovery and development from the screening of plant extracts for the discovery of new therapeutic agents to in vitro models of drug metabolism and bioavailability studies in clinical trials.
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Professor Samad Hedayat, Biostatistics Component |
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Elizabeth C Krause, PharmD - Program Coordinator Liz earned her PharmD at the UIC College of Pharmacy preceded by a BS in biological sciences from the UIC College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Previously, Liz was an assistant editor of a drug monograph series and separately, managed a medication use evaluation Program. Her interest in Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) including botanical dietary supplements is long standing. She has also worked as a retail pharmacist in a |
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Ali Hasnie, Undergraduate Assistant
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Assistant Professor Guido F. Pauli, Project Leader
Pauli, Guido F.: Assistant Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Ph.D. (1993) Heinrich Heine–University Düsseldorf; Pharm.D., 1988, Philipps University Marburg. Research interests: Within the realm of modern pharmacognosy, investigation of traditional as well as novel natural products by means of chemical, biological, pharmacological and metabolome analysis. Research tools are computer-aided structure elucidation, multidimensional and quantitative NMR, modern chromatographic methods including countercurrent chromatography, in tandem with in vitro and in vivo biology and pharmacology as well as microbiological methods. Relying on this tool chest, research focuses are in phytopharmacy and phytochemistry, herbal dietary supplements, reference materials, anti-TB drugs and mycobacterial secondary metabolites. |
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Professor Norman R. Farnsworth, Co-Investigator (See Core A) |
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Research Associate Professor David C Lankin, Co-Investigator
David C. Lankin Ph.D. (Organic Chemistry) - Research Associate Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry & Pharmacognosy UIC. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Cincinnati (1972). Following a 2-year post-doctoral at the University of New Orelans (Gary W. Griffin / Photochemistry), he joined the Chemical Division of the Borg-Warner Corporation (Borg-Warner Chemicals). During the period (1974 - 1985) he was involved in developing and applying NMR technology at the Borg-Warner Research Center in Des Plaines, Illinois. In 1985, he moved to Varian Associates as an NMR Applications Chemist and was responsible for the operation of the Chicago NMR Applications Laboratory. In 1988 he joined the Physical Methodology Department of G.D. Searle (which later became Pharmacia Corporation in 2000 and Pfizer in 2002) where he was a Principal Research Scientist and Supervisor of the NMR Laboratory. He has co-authored > 60 papers in the field of organic chemistry with emphasis on the structural and quantitative applications of NMR. In 2000 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Award of the Chicago Section of The Society for Applied Spectroscopy. He is presently working (with Guido Pauli) in the UIC/NIH Botanical Center and is involved with the structure elucidation of natural products using NMR. |
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Research Assistant Professor Shao-Nong Chen, Co-Investigator |
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Professor Emeritus Harry H.S. Fong, Contributor |
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Professor Doel D. Soejarto, Contributor Soejarto, D. Doel: Professor and Director of the Pharmacognosy Field Station, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, and the Department of Biology, Ph.D. (1969) Harvard University Research interests: Taxonomy and conservation of plants, with special focus in Southeast Asia, particularly, Vietnam and Laos, and study of plants used in indigenous therapy, as well as tropical rainforest explorations of new and potential medicinal plants (bioprospecting), as part of collaborative research projects at UIC. I also study the taxonomy of the family Actinidiaceae. Since 1998, I have been directing an international collaborative program to study the biodiversity of Vietnam and Laos, as part of the International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups (ICBG) Program (http://www.fic.nih.gov/programs/icbg.html and http://www.uic.edu/pharmacy/research/icbg/ICBG.htm) of the Fogarty International Center, NIH. Our ICBG program activities include floristics and conservation at Cuc Phuong National Park; studies of medicinal plants of Laos; biological evaluation of plants of Vietnam and Laos using anti-HIV, anticancer, anti-TB and anti-malarial bioassays toward the discovery of biologically active molecules as potential candidates for pharmaceutical development; and the promotion of economic development among communities in Vietnam and Laos, where our ICBG work is being undertaken. Aside from UIC as base institution, our ICBG consortium members include Purdue University, Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology in Hanoi (Institute of Biotechnology, Institute of Chemistry, and Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources), Cuc Phuong National Park (Vietnam), Traditional Medicine Research Center in Vientiane (Laos), and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (industrial partner).
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Ayano Imai, Graduate Student
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Matthew Main, Graduate Student Matt earned a BS in biology from the |
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Donna is currently a fifth year PhD student with a thesis focused on opioid activity of Vitex agnus-castus and other herbs for women's under the direction of Dr. Z. Jim Wang and Norman R. Farnsworth. Her research interests include fieldwork for collection of plant material, bioassay-guided fractionation of plant extracts using radioligand binding and g-protein activation to find new opioid agonists, and authentication of botanical supplements using scanning electron microscopy, HPLC fingerprinting, and DNA sequencing. Other academic interests include neuroendocrinology, psychopharmacology, criminalistics, medicinal properties of fruits, vegetables, and spices as means of disease prevention, and food science. Donna received a B.S. in biology with a minor in neuroscience from |
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Project 2 – Mechanisms of Action of Botanicals | |
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Professor Judy L. Bolton, Project Leader Bolton, Judy L.: Professor and Head, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Ph.D. (1988) University of Toronto Research interests: Chemical toxicology. The toxic effects elicited by dietary constituents often involves oxidative metabolism to electrophilic intermediates. We utilize chemical and biological approaches to study the cytotoxic/genotoxic mechanism including synthesis, spectroscopy, chromatography and enzymology. Metabolites and metabolic intermediates are identified, and their effects on various biochemical parameters studied. |
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Research Assistant Professor |
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Johann Sohn, Postdoctoral Research Associate
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Ping Yao, Research Specialist
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Sharla Powell, Graduate Student |
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Ghenet Hagos, Graduate Student |
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Project 3 – In Vitro Studies of Metabolism, Bioavailability and Toxicity | |
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Professor Richard B van Breemen, Project Leader |
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Yong S. Choi, Postdoctoral Research Fellow |
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Soyoun Ahn, Graduate Student
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Jian Guo, Graduate Student
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Core B - Analytical | |
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Professor Richard B van Breemen, Core Leader (See Project 3) |
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Mass Spec Research Specialist Dejan Nikolic, Co-Investigator Dr. Nikolic is a Co-Investigator in the Analytical Core. He utilizes modern liquid chromatography-mass spectrometric approaches to determine the structure of active plant ingredients, their bioavailability, metabolic pathways and potential toxicity. He is also involved in quantitative determination of active ingredients in clinical specimens from patients enrolled in the clinical trials.
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Dongting Liu, Graduate Student Dongting earned a B.S. in Pharmaceutical Sciences, |
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Clinical Evaluation Group – Phase II Clinical Trial | |
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Assistant Professor Stacie Geller, PhD Group Leader
Stacie Geller, Ph.D. is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine and at the School of Public Health. Dr. Geller is the Director of the UIC Center for Research on Women and Gender and the UIC National Center of Excellence in Women's Health, Office on Women's Health, Department of Health and Human Services. She is currently a Co-Investigator for a 5-year, NIH NCCAM center grant "Botanical Dietary Supplements for Women's Health" and is the Principal Investigator of the clinical component of this grant for the conduct of Phase I and Phase II clinical trials of two plant extracts (black cohosh and red clover) for the treatment of menopausal symptoms. |
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Professor |
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Senior Research Specialist Suzanne Banuvar, Study Manager |
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Professor Samad Hedayat, Biostatistics Component (See Core A) |
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Ying Zhou , Graduate Student |
