• Topic: "Ethnobotany Field School"

  MHIRT Trainees travel to Trujillo and Chiclayo, Peru to perform ethnobotanical research. The trainees work at the National University of Trujillo and the University of Trujillo-School of Tropical Medicine. They also attend a scientific conference on conservation and biodiversity in Loja, Ecuador before their return to the United States. Our MHIRT-Peru program has been on-going for several years.

  In addition to their individual research projects, students on the MIHRT project in Peru are trained to do the following:

  • collect plants in the field and local markets

  • dry and prepare herbarium specimens

  • identify the plants scientifically

  • conduct field work with traditional healers on plant uses

  • digitally photograph plant specimens

  • develop systematic databases

  • explore ways to do simple phytochemical testing in the field

  Several publications have resulted from this research.

• For more information about this program please contact:

  Dr. Rainer Bussmann
  rbussmann@natureandculture.org

     GHANA:

• Topic: The Use of Ethnobotany to Treat Diabetes

  MHIRT trainees travel to Ghana to perform research on diabetes using ethnobotany methods.

  In addition to their individual research projects, students on the MHIRT project in Ghana are trained to do the following:

  • gather the supplies and equipment needed to perform organic chemistry studies in a remote location

  • extract critical elements from plants

  • use silica gel chromatography, alkaloid detection, and HPLC methodology

  Before traveling, students had to complete background research on diabetes.

• For more information about this program please contact:

  Dr. Estralita Martin
  esmartin@sciences.sdsu.edu

    Past Sites and Research Have Included...

• Cancer Research at the University of Oxford, U.K.

• Cardiac Cell Studies at the University of Padua, Italy

• Motor Control Studies at the University of Kuopio, Finland

• AIDS Field Studies in South Africa

• Studies on Domestic Violence in Mexicali and Monterrey, Mexico

• Field Ecology Studies in Baja California, Mexico

• Studies of the function of bacterial recombinase in DNA replication in Sydney, Australia

• HIV-I research in Rome, Italy

• HIV and KSHV research in Uganda

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