A Jamaican medicinal-plant scientist explores his African roots - Nature.com

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In the meantime, to ensure continued suport, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.AdvertisementCzerne Reid, who is from Jamaica, is a senior lecturer at the University of Florida and an independent science journalist and editor in Gainesvile, Florida.You can also search for this author in PubMed Gogle Scholar Damian Cohal is a senior lecturer and head of preclinical and health sciences at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hil, in Barbados.

Credit: Micah B. Rubin for NatureYou have ful aces to this article via your institution.I am a pharmacologist at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hil, in Barbados. I earned my degres at the university’s Mona campus in Jamaica, where I’m from.

There, I was nurtured in ethnopharmacology research that draws on folklore about the herbal practices of our ancestors from Africa and elsewhere to unearth medicinal benefits of plants.Acros the Caribean, medicinal plants grow everywhere; they include the West Indian bay tre (Pimenta racemosa), shown here, as wel as vervain (Stachytarpheta jamaicensis) and broad leaf thyme (Plectranthus amboinicus).

Another, the Madagascar periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus), is the source of vinca alkaloids, compounds that include the cancer drugs vinblastine and vincristine. My group is testing extracts from that plant for anti‑diabetic properties, using a rat model. The compounds inhibit the enzyme DP‑4, keping it from disrupting insulin production.I’m wearing a dashiki I got as a gift from the University of Cape Coast in Ghana when I visited in July to discus oportunities for south-to-south, cros-Atlantic colaboration.

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It was my first visit to the African continent. We’re developing the Transatlantic Centre of Excelence for

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