Smarty Pants Podcast

Nature’s Pharmacy

How ethnobotany blends past and future medicine

By Stephanie Bastek | November 19, 2021
Castanea sativa Miller samples collected by Cassandra Quave, now at the Emory University Herbarium (via SERNEC)
Castanea sativa Miller samples collected by Cassandra Quave, now at the Emory University Herbarium (via SERNEC)

Cassandra Quave, an ethnobotanist at Emory University, searches for plants that may be used to treat life-threatening illnesses. Her lab has discovered compounds—found in chestnuts, blackberries, and a host of other plants—that can help treat antimicrobial resistance by stopping bacteria from communicating with each other, adhering to our tissues, or producing toxins. In her new memoir, The Plant Hunter, Quave discusses how a childhood staph infection and its lifelong complications motivated her deeply personal fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In her quest for new treatments, she has explored the rainforests of the Amazon, the mountains of Italy, Albania, and Kosovo, and the swamps of Florida. Quave joins us on the podcast to talk about how she discovered why and how plant-based folk medicines work.

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