Poster #55 - Cassandra Quave

Worcester Polytechnic Institute, United States

Biography

Dr. Cassandra Quave is curator of the herbarium and assistant professor of dermatology and human health at Emory University, where she leads drug discovery research initiatives and teaches courses on medicinal plants, food, and health. Trained as a medical ethnobotanist, her research focuses on the documentation and biochemical analysis of botanical remedies used in the traditional treatment of infectious and inflammatory skin disease. She earned her BSc in biology and anthropology from Emory in 2000, her PhD in biology from Florida International University in 2008, and completed post-doctoral fellowships in microbiology at UAMS (2009-2011) and human health at Emory (2012). She has authored more than 60 publications, two edited books and three patents. She is the co-founder and CEO/CSO of PhytoTEK LLC, a drug discovery company dedicated to developing solutions from botanicals for the treatment of antibiotic resistant infections and recalcitrant wounds. She is also a past president of the Society for Economic Botany, an international society with the mission of fostering research and education on the past, present, and future uses of plants by people. She has been the subject of feature profiles in the New York Times Magazine, BBC Focus, Brigitte Magazin, National Geographic Channel, and NPR.