[MPWG] Fwd: PRESS RELEASE: Gordon Cragg to Receive American Botanical Council's Norman R. Farnsworth Excellence in Botanical Research Award

[De Angelis, Patricia]

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From: ABC Public Relations <publicrelations at herbalgram.org>
Date: Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 2:15 PM
Subject: PRESS RELEASE: Gordon Cragg to Receive American Botanical
Council's Norman R. Farnsworth Excellence in Botanical Research Award

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American Botanical Council - 25 Years of Herbal Excellence

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PRESS RELEASE

Gordon Cragg to Receive American Botanical Council's Norman R.
Farnsworth Excellence in Botanical Research Award

(AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 18, 2014) The American Botanical Council (ABC)
recognizes 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 Development Program 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
will be 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 occurs 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 is 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

MegaFood
Natural Factors Nutritional Products
New Chapter
New Hope Natural Media
PlusPharma
RFI Ingredients
Traditional Medicinals
United Natural Products Alliance

About the American Botanical Council

Founded in 1988, the American Botanical Council is a leading
international nonprofit organization that addresses research and
educational issues regarding botanicals, teas, medicinal plants,
essential oils, other therapeutic plant-derived materials, and
beneficial fungi. ABC's members and stakeholders include
researchers, health professionals, consumers, nonprofit organizations,
libraries, universities, herb and cosmetic industry members, and
others in more than 80 countries. The organization occupies a historic
2.5-acre site in Austin, Texas, where it publishes the peer-reviewed
quarterly journal HerbalGram, the monthly e-publication HerbalEGram,
the weekly e-newsletter Herbal News & Events, HerbClips (summaries
of scientific and clinical publications), reference books, and other
educational materials. ABC also hosts HerbMedPro, a powerful herbal
database, covering scientific and clinical publications on more than
250 herbs. ABC also co-produces the "Herbal Insights"
segment for Healing Quest, a television series on PBS, and
manages the ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulterants Program, an
international consortium of nonprofit and industry trade
organizations, analytical laboratories, industry members, and
other parties committed to increasing educational information
on the quality and authenticity of botanical raw materials,
extracts and essential oils in the global marketplace.

ABC is tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS Code.
Information: Contact ABC at P.O. Box 144345, Austin, TX 78714-4345,
Phone: 512-926-4900. Website: www.herbalgram.org
. Contact: Public Relations

http://abc.herbalgram.org/site/R?i=WDjCZ_j30nW-vSNlhQhA-Q
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