Austin, TX — The American Botanical Council (ABC), a research and educational organization for the use of herbal medicine, has announced Ikhlas Khan, Ph.D. as recipient of the 2016 ABC Mark Blumenthal Herbal Community Builder Award. This annual award, named for ABC founder and executive director Mark Blumenthal, recognizes individuals who have played a significant role in creating a sense of community among herbalists, researchers, and related individuals who work in the area of herb and natural products.

Khan, whose primary research interests include drug discovery from medicinal plants, holds various research and professorial positions. At the start of this year, Khan became the director of the National Center for Natural Products Research (NCNPR) at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi. He was previously the associate director. Khan is also a research professor of pharmacognosy at UM, director of the Sino-US Traditional Chinese Medicine Research Center, and the research professor and coordinator for natural products research in the Center for Water and Wetland Resources.

Khan, who was born in Amroha, India studied chemistry at the Aligarh Muslim University in Aligarh, India, earned his doctorate in pharmacy from the Institute for Pharmaceutical Biology in Munich, Germany in 1987, and did his postdoctoral research at the Department of Pharmacy at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland in 1990 before being appointed as a research scientist at the University of Mississippi in 1992.

Khan has co-authored more than 700 research articles and is the co-editor ofPlanta Medicaand a foreign editor of theJournal of Traditional Chinese Medicine. He is the recipient of numerous awards for scientific achievement, including the American Society of Pharmacognosy’s Tyler Prize in 2011, the American Herbal Products Association’s Herbal Insight Award in 2010, the FDA’s Commissioner’s Special Citation in 2009 and others in addition to his recent ABC Mark Blumenthal award.

Of the award, Khan said in a press release, “I am honored to receive this recognition — this award named after Mark Blumenthal, who is a living example of a community builder.”