Arkansas State Professor Elected ACMAP President
JONESBORO, Ark. — Dr. Fabricio Medina-Bolivar, associate professor of metabolic engineering at Arkansas State University, has been elected as president of the American Council for Medicinally Active Plants (ACMAP) for the year 2014.
The primary purpose of this professional society is to promote and foster research, development, production, and conservation of medicinal, aromatic, and other bioactive plants useful to human health.
Dr. Medina-Bolivar organized and hosted the third annual meeting of ACMAP in 2012 that was attended by 19 countries and 22 states.
His research is at the interface of plant biotechnology and medicine. His research involves the use "hairy roots" for production of specialized biologically active chemicals with important applications in the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical/food and agricultural industries.
"Hairy roots" are unique tissue culture systems that reproduce the biosynthetic potential of intact plants. Dr. Medina-Bolivar’s approach is to utilize different stress signals to induce the natural biosynthetic pathways present in the roots. In addition, metabolic engineering strategies are utilized to enhance the production of these chemicals. Through active research collaborations with scientists on and off campus, these chemicals are being tested for different biological activities, including anticancer and antimicrobial properties.
Other 2014 ACMAP board members include vice president Jeff Adelberg of Clemson University; secretary Rao Mentreddy of Alabama A&M University; treasurer Carol Stiff of Kitchen Culture Education Technologies Inc.; member at large 1 Jeanine Davis of North Carolina State University; member at large 2 Nirmal Joshee of Fort Valley State University; and member-at-large 3 Anait Levenson of the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
Ex-officio members are past president Agnes Rimando of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA); executive director Gary Stutte of NASA; editor JMAP Lyle Craker of the University of Massachusetts and program chair Dipayan Sakar of North Dakota State University.
