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DARDEN LECTURE – Dr. Cassandra Quave
October 13, 2022 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Hosted by the Department of Biological Sciences, Dr. Cassandra Quave will present the 2022 Darden Lecture titled “The Plant Hunter: A Scientist’s Quest for Nature’s Next Medicines.”
Plants are the basis for an array of lifesaving and health-improving medicines we all now take for granted. Ever taken an aspirin? Thank a willow tree for that. What about medicines for malaria? Some of those are derived from cinchona and wormwood.
In today’s world of synthetic pharmaceuticals, many people have forgotten this connection to the natural world. But by ignoring the potential of medicinal plants, we are losing out on the opportunity to discover new medicines needed in the fight against the greatest medical challenge of this century: the rise of the post-antibiotic era.
Dr. Cassandra Quave shares stories of her quest to discover nature’s next medicines. She has explored the flooded forests of the Amazon, the rolling hills of Italy, isolated mountaintops in Albania and Kosovo, and isles arising out of the Mediterranean—all in search of natural compounds, long-known to traditional healers, that could help save us all from the looming crisis of untreatable superbugs.