Diversity, affirmative action, and equal opportunity
Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity at OHSU exists to promote diversity and prevent discrimination. Learn about affirmative action and equal opportunity at the OHSU Department of Neurology.
The BENFRA Center is actively committed to equity, inclusion and expanding diversity within our Program.
Announcements
August 2023 Congratulations to three of our Postdoctoral Scholars who have obtained Career development awards linked to their work at BENFRA!
- Dr. Alex Speers has been awarded a NIH/NCATS KL2 training grant through the Oregon Clinical and Translational Research Institute at OHSU. The title of his project is: Safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics of an oral Withania somnifera product in older adults.
- Dr. Ben Zimmerman received a Medical Research Foundation Early Clinical Investigator award. The title of his project is: Effect of Centella asiatica on Vascular Endothelial Function in Older Adults. This study will be conducted at the National University of Natural Medicine, Portland.
- Dr. Steven Chamberlin was awarded a K08 grant from the National Center of Complementary and Integrative Health (NIH/NCCIH). The title of his project is: Network models to capture multiple outcomes resulting from multi-component, salutogenic interventions.
July 2023 Applications are Invited for Pilot Project grants funded by the OHSU Neurology Department (deadline October 2, 2023): View the full announcement and application form.
July 2023 Congratulations to BENFRA Co-Investigator Dr. Anusha Mishra, promoted to Associate Professor!
July 2023 BENFRA welcomes a new R03 collaborator, Dr. Wendy Strangman, from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington who will be evaluating metabolic stability of Ashwagandha extracts using in vitro laboratory models simulating the gastrointestinal environment. Welcome Dr. Strangman and lab!
May 2023 Congratulations to the joint first authors Dr. Alex Speers and Kadine Cabey!
review written by BENFRA authors (Speers et al, 2021) is cited as a “key reference” on the NCCIH’s public information sheet on Ashwagandha.
May 2023 Congratulations Ben!
BENFRA’s Dr. Ben Zimmerman won the “Best Post-doc poster award” at the Oregon & Southwest Washington Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience Meeting (May 12-13, 2023), for his poster on “An ex vivo mouse brain slice model to study acute cerebral vasoactivity of Centella asiatica water” extract.
May 2023 Congratulations Amala!
Dr. Amala Soumyanath was interviewed and quoted in this Huff Post article about ashwagandha and stress.
The BENFRA Center is one of three national Botanical Dietary Supplements Research Centers funded (U19 AT010829) by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) and the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS), and is part of the NIH CARBON program. This Center investigates Botanicals Enhancing Neurological and Functional Resilience in Aging.
The Center’s mission is to scientifically evaluate botanicals currently being sold as dietary supplements that are reputed to improve resilience to age-related changes in cognition, sleep or mood. Our goal is to obtain a firm understanding of the biological and chemical properties of these botanicals, so that well-designed clinical trials can be performed to evaluate their efficacy. Ultimately this work will support the development of optimized botanical products with reliable health benefits.
The Center comprises a multidisciplinary group of scientists based at OHSU, along with collaborators at Oregon State University, the University of Mississippi and Oregon’s Wild Harvest, a botanical dietary supplement company.
Learn more about our research, botanicals of interest, and research team.
Program Director
Amala Soumyanath B.Pharm., Ph.D.
soumyana@ohsu.edu
Center Administrator
Lucy Allison, M.S.
BENFRA@ohsu.edu
503-418-8197