As a professor and researcher at Cornell University, Eloy Rodriguez is studying and
developing novel biomedicines from plants and arthropods to treat major health
disparities, such as breast and pancreatic cancer and Type 2 diabetes.
Rodriguez will speak on this novel approach, on connecting research with
community involvement and on his focus on public health and medical education in
underrepresented communities during the next University Lectures presentation at
Syracuse University on Tuesday, Feb. 17.
The presentation, "Darwinian Medicine and the Genesis of Organic Natural
Medicines," will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Hendricks Chapel. The event is free and open
to the public; reduced-rate parking is available in the Irving Avenue parking garage.
Rodriguez is the James A. Perkins Endowed Professor and a research scientist at
Cornell. His work is an inspiring combination of entrepreneurship, scholarship and
activism. Throughout his career, he has focused on the chemical biology, ecology and
medicinal chemistry and toxicology of natural small molecules and glycoproteins
from plants and arthropods that are important in ecological and biological
interactions and human and animal health and medicine. He co-established the
discipline of zoopharmacognosy (animal self-medication with plants) and chemo-
ornithology (chemical ecology of bird-insect-plant interactions). In addition to his
work on natural medicines, Rodriguez focuses on the importance of culture and
indigenous health care systems, and health disparities in poor Appalachian whites,
and Chicano/a and Native American populations. His work is supported by the
National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
A vocal advocate for science education, Rodriguez created the Kids Investigating and
Discovering Science (KIDS) program for kindergarten through eighth-grade children
in underrepresented populations. He has devoted many years to the training of
undergraduate and graduate minority students, who are now doctors, health
specialists, research professors, environmental ecologists and biologists.
Rodriguez received the American Chemical Society Eminent Scientist Award in 2001
and has been named three times to the list of the "100 Most Influential Hispanics" by
Hispanic Business Magazine. Rodriguez also received the National Science
Foundation Educator Achievement Award and NIH Research Career Development
Award, and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of
Sciences (AAAS).
Now in its eighth year, University Lectures maintains its tradition of bringing to the
SU campus some of the most influential movers and shapers from around the world.
The series is supported by the generosity of the University's trustees, alumni and
friends. For more information, visit http://lectures.syr.edu.
Upcoming speakers in the University Lectures' 2009 spring season include Janine Benyus, biologist and founder of the Biomimicry Institute
(March 3 at 4 p.m.); and Robert Ballard, oceanographer, photographer and deep-sea
explorer (March 24 at 7:30 p.m.).
