September Monthly Meeting: Dr. Vincent Ziffle

Solutions to the effective treatment of bacterial and advanced Candida albicans infections have been sought with the assistance of Indigenous Traditional Knowledge Keepers collaborating with chemists and biochemists across western Canada. Infectious diseases are now being thwarted thanks to treatments stemming from Indigenous Medicinal Plant Healing Traditions, changing attitudes about medicinal chemistry and who truly understands how to effectively fight disease. To arrive at this point, wayfinding with the help of many Indigenous Elders, Knowledge Keepers and Traditional Healers was imperative, and part of a decade-long unlearning and learning process for a conventional-trained synthetic organic chemist. His journey, beginning with unconventional classrooms, Land-based Learning, Protocol and Ceremony, Truth and Reconciliation, re-evaluation of research conventions and goals (and plenty of hard-won lessons), will be shared. Efforts toward development of successfully Indigenized chemistry courses (i.e., Chemistry of Food and Cooking), interdisciplinarity, and increased systems thinking in lab and field helped shift paradigms…