Center Personnel
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
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 |
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Professor Samad Hedayat, Biostatistics Component Samad Hedayat: UIC Distinguished Professor Research Interests: Developing statistical theory and methodology for: design and analyses of experiments, medical and pharmaceutical studies, environmental studies, forensic investigations, data safety and monitoring activities, and survey sampling. |
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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 CAM pharmacy providing prescription medications, botanical dietary supplements and homeopathic remedies, and is interested in preventative health care and health maintenance practices including exercise and meditation. |
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Ali Hasnie, Undergraduate Assistant Ali is a second year in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, who is currently exploring career options. He is using his background in computer information systems from DeVry University to provide technical assistance in the office, and helps with general office tasks as needed. Ali enjoys learning about current automotive technology and watching sports. |
Project 1 - Standardization of Botanical Dietary Supplements |
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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 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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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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Tanja Gödecke, Postdoctoral Research Associate "After graduating from the Pharmacy school, I focused on natural products chemistry for my PhD at Free University Berlin, Germany. I am currently working as a postdoc for Project 1. Main goals are fractionation of extracts and isolation of active natural products in a bio-assay guided approach, employing counter current chromatography and modern NMR techniques." |
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Ayano Imai, Graduate Student
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Matthew Main, Graduate Student Matt earned a BS in biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Before entering UIC, Matt was employed as an instrument maker with Northwestern University. As a member of Project 1, Matt is in search of active constituents of Cornus officinalis (dogwood) and Angelica sinensis (Dong Quai). Matt’s hobbies include flying and fencing. |
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Donna Webster, Graduate Student 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 Pennsylvania State University and an M.S. in Forensic Science with a concentration in toxicology from UIC. In her free time she enjoys traveling, running marathons, motorcycles, mountain biking, hiking, cooking and much more. |
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 Birgit Dietz, Co-Investigator
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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 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 |
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Yong S. Choi, Postdoctoral Research Fellow "I obtained my PhD degree in Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago and joined the UIC/NIH botanical center as a postdoctoral associate in 2006. The research I am pursuing in the botanical center is to screen natural products for ligands to estrogen receptors using mass spectrometry based assays. Especially pulsed ultrafiltration LC-MS, which was developed by our group in the botanical center, provides excellent selectivity, sensitivity, and structural information that facilitate the identification of ligands in complex mixtures such as botanical extracts." |
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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 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 |
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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, Peking University, region>China during 2003 and joined the UIC College of Pharmacy Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy that same year. Dongting notes that "my research includes the application of mass spectrometry based methods for fishing out phase 2 inducers targeting to human Keap1 from botanical extracts using MALDI-TOF MS and LC-UV-MS-M" |
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 Lee Shulman, MD, Study Physician Lee Shulman: Clinical Interests are Hormonal Problems, Genetics - Reproductive, Genetics - Common Diseases, Genetics - Cancer, Amniocentesis, Chorionic Villi Sampling, Contraception Shulman works at Northwestern Memorial Hospital: (312) 926-6622 |
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Senior Research Specialist Suzanne Banuvar, Study Manager
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Professor Samad Hedayat, Biostatistics Component
Samad Hedayat: UIC Distinguished Professor Research Interests: Developing statistical theory and methodology for: design and analyses of experiments, medical and pharmaceutical studies, environmental studies, forensic investigations, data safety and monitoring activities, and survey sampling. |
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Ying Zhou, Graduate Student
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