Plants are the basis for an array of medicines we all now take for granted, and they may provide the solution needed in the fight against the greatest medical challenge of this century: the rise of the post-antibiotic era. No one understands this better than Dr. Cassandra Quave, whose groundbreaking research as a medical ethnobotanist—someone who identifies and studies plants to treat threatening illnesses—is helping to provide clues for the next generation of advanced medicines.
Her quest is personal as well as scientific: as a person born with multiple congenital defects of her skeletal system who nearly lost her life at the age of three due to a staph infection, she has an intimate knowledge of the strengths and failing of modern medicine. Dr. Quave weaves together science, botany, and memoir to recount her own journey, which has taken her from the flooded forests of the remote Amazon to isolated mountaintops in Albania in search of natural compounds, long known to traditional healers that could help save us all from this looming crisis.
Details:
– This in-person event is a production of the Atlanta Botanical Garden.
– As a special Alston Lecture, it is free and open to the public, and no Garden admission will be charged.
– An RSVP here is not required to attend.
– The lecture will be held in Day Hall.
– Masks are required when in-doors.
– A book signing will follow the lecture.
