The BCS is delighted to present the next Speaker in the 2009 Programme, Ben Gilbert. Ben is an expert on phytomedicines - medicines derived from natural, botanical sources. After getting his doctorate from Bristol University in 1954 & completing post-doctoral studies in natural products at Wayne State University in the USA in 1957, Ben arrived in Brazil in 1958 to help set up a lab for the precursor of EMBRAPA. The work continued at UFRJ where a Natural Product Research Centre was set up in 1963 for post-graduate work in this area. This led to extensive field work all over Brazil which continues until today. The National Research Council oriented this work to the health area & financed a programme into endemic diseases carried out jointly by UFERJ & The Brazilian Navy Health Directorate. Starting in 1985 the work led to commercial opportunities being developed by the University of Campinas Technological Development Company. In 1992 the programme moved to FIOCRUZ in Rio de Janeiro. Ben now acts as Technical Adviser to the successor of the programme, the Biodiversity & Health Administrative Nucleus (NGBS).

 

Ben Gilbert will present some of the plants & their medicinal uses that have been identified & developed as a result of studies carried out over the last 50 years into the hundreds of plants whose practical use in medicine was well known from traditional sources. These medicinal plants are just a small part of Brazil's flora, which accounts for about 20% of the global total. These plants are found from all the 6 main ecological regions - the Amazon, the dry North-East, the cerrado that covers a vast strip of the interior from northern Sao Paulo to Amapa and Roraima, the Atlantic Forest, the Pampas of Rio Grande do Sul and the Pantanal. Many of these plants have now been studied scientifically & their traditional use confirmed. Some are more effective than allopathic (synthertic) medicines. The aim of the NGBS is to implement the process by which these discoveries are produced on an industrial scale for use by SUS, the Public Health service; in rural areas where pharmacies are few & far between & for commercial exploration by the pharmaceutical industry."

 

This presentation will take place at the Jubilee Hall on Tuesday, 10th November. There's plenty of onsite parking behind the Hall. The presentation starts at 7.45pm preceded  by drinks & snacks at 7pm. Unless Ben tells us otherwise there will not be any free samples of ayahuasca nor will those asking too many questions be quietened with a quick blowpipe full of curare. Seriously though, you are welcome to ask Ben any questions you have on this topic & get answers from an expert with a lifetme of experience in the field.

 

Please let the BCS Office know if you plan to attend so we can organize the catering.