Bridging modern science and Indiginous traditional medicine: Team in Aboriginal Antidiabetic Medicines

75 minutes pre record 

The CIHR Team in Aboriginal Antidiabetic Medicines is a multipartite project researching the antidiabetic effects of plants used by aboriginals and is funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research.

The project involves phytochemistry, cell-based bioassays, animal models of diabetes, toxicological tests, nutritional strategies and clinical research. It also includes a health systems research component aiming to integrate Cree healing ways, such as medicinal plants, into diabetes health care offered to Cree diabetics.

All aspects of our research program are community-based such that Elders and other community representatives are directly consulted and involved at every level. A major focus is thus placed on reciprocal knowledge translation.

learning objectives

• How does one approach the multidisciplinary study of Indigenous medicinal plants in the realm of metabolic diseases, particularly diabetes?
• What are the challenges of trying to bridge this gap between biomedical science and traditional medicine.
• Which Boreal forest plants have promising anti-diabetic potential and what are their modes of action and active principles