
The University of Florida Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience Evenings at Whitney Lecture Series continues Thursday, January 9, 2025, at 6 p.m. with the program titled “From the Wilderness to the Research Laboratory: My Quest to Uncover the Mysterious Healing Properties of Plants”. Dr. Nadja B. Cech, Patricia A. Sullivan Professor of Chemistry, University of North Carolina Greensboro, will be the speaker.
This free lecture will be presented in person at the UF Whitney Laboratory Lohman Auditorium, 9505 Ocean Shore Boulevard, in St. Augustine. Those interested also have the option of registering to watch via Zoom live the night of the lecture.
Register to watch online:
https://ufl.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_CV-aCrhQQ4W6RxX3yGBW8g
Many of our most effective medicines – taxol for breast cancer, artemisinin for malaria, penicillin for bacterial infections – come from nature. In 1500 BCE, thousands of years before chemists identified the molecule we call opium, ancient Egyptians wrote about how poppies can be used to treat pain. Drawing on this fascinating history, this public lecture will explore the incredible journey of a scientist who explores the natural world to find treatments for disease. Scientific findings from the Cech Laboratory will be interwoven with Dr. Nadja Cech’s personal story of growing up off grid in the Oregon wilderness.
Dr. Nadja Cech had an unusual start for her science career. She grew up off grid in the Oregon Wilderness, living in a yurt and spending much of her time barefoot in the forest and garden, fascinated by the beauty and mystery of the natural world. When she was fourteen years old, Dr. Cech enrolled in community college and took her first chemistry class. Less than a decade later, she earned a PhD in chemistry, becoming one of the youngest people ever to do so.
These days Dr. Cech supervises a dynamic research group at the University of North Carolian Greensboro devoted to identifying novel and medicinally useful molecules from plants and fungi. She is the recipient of the 2024 Schwarting Award from the Journal of Natural Products, the 2017 Thomas Norwood Award for Undergraduate Research Mentorship, and the 2022 Board of Governors Teaching Excellence Award from the University of North Carolina System. Dr. Cech’s Memoir Wild Chemistry is forthcoming in 2027 from Simon and Schuster.