Medical ethnobotanist Cassandra Quave (Flag #25) leads anti-infective drug discovery research initiatives and teaches courses on medicinal plants, natural products, microbiology and pharmacology at Emory University. Antimicrobial resistant infections are responsible for 700,000 deaths annually, projected to reach 10 million deaths per year by 2050. Innovative approaches to identifying novel chemical compounds that could serve as the next generation of antibiotics are in high demand. Plants have played a fundamental role as the basis of the pharmacopoeia of many different cultures since ancient times. Cassandra’s work, which focuses on the documentation and pharmacological evaluation of plants used in traditional medicine, has taken her on expeditions ranging from remote forests in the Amazon and isolated mountaintops in Albania and Kosovo, to volcanic Mediterranean isles and Florida’s southern swamps.

Cassandra and her team (including partners in the Emory Herbarium, which she curates) traveled the Bahariya Oasis of Egypt’s Western Desert to collect flora.  One of the oldest existing records of the medicinal applications of plants is the Egyptian “Ebers Papyrus,” which dates back to circa 1550 BC. Despite the historic importance of Egyptian flora in the foundation of medicine, many of the species documented in this record remain unstudied by the lens of modern science. Cassandra’s group collected and authenticated herbarium specimens of each species under study and created extracts for chemical characterization and pharmacological evaluation in a panel of antibacterial and toxicity laboratory models. The host of Foodie Pharmacology, a podcast that explores the links between food and medicine, and author of more than 100 scientific publications and seven patents, Cassandra recently published her science memoir, The Plant Hunter: A Scientist’s Quest for Nature’s Next Medicines.