Keynote Address by Dr. Kevin Spelman
Friday, November 16, 7:00PM
Krotona Hall
Acupuncturists, please note: We have been approved as Continuing Education Provider #1526 by the California Acupuncture Board. This lecture is one of 12 approved for 1 hour of Category 1 credit.
Insights into Resilience: The Human-Plant Connection
Kevin Spelman, PhD
Plants have provided food, shelter, clothing and medicine for humankind for millennia. Continuing and mounting research also demonstrates that plants enhance our health through subtle phytonutrient nudges, facilitating physiological responses that make us more able to weather periods of stress and challenge. Compounds such as flavonoids, saponins, terpenes and even cannabinoids, have a long evolutionary history of interfacing with the human system providing humans with resilience as we move through our day to day activities.
Dr. Kevin Spelman is an internationally recognized expert on the molecular biology and clinical therapeutics of botanical medicines and new product development. A past National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow and Marie Curie research fellow in the European Union, Dr. Spelman has published 27 scientific papers and 6 chapters. Dr. Spelman has also practiced clinical phytotherapy for 20 years in various medical centers as well as advised the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine and most recently was invited to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy conference on the microbiome. Dr. Spelman has also consulted for the Department of Defense on specific therapeutic outcomes using natural products.
Dr. Spelman’s research includes brain and ovarian cancer and clinical investigations, immunological studies, and chemical analysis on numerous medicinal plants. He is known for his expertise on the molecular biology of medical Cannabis and cannabidiol (CBD). Past research projects have included the molecular biology of cannabinoid receptors, where he was the first researcher to demonstrate cannabinoid ligands in Zanthoxylum spp. Dr. Spelman is an adjunct assistant professor at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, an adjunct professor of botanical medicine at National College of Natural Medicine and a distinguished lecturer at Maryland University of Integrative Health. Dr. Spelman is also a member of the prestigious College of Practitioners of Phytotherapy in the UK.