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Memory Elvin-Lewis is a prominent ethnobotanist and infectious disease microbiologist. In her career spanning over fifty years, Elvin-Lewis has contributed to the medical and botanical professions in various ways. In 1969 Elvin-Lewis was one of the scientists who recorded the case of Robert Rayford, the first documented case of HIV/AIDS in the United States of America. In addition to her early work in virology, Elvin-Lewis has studied the ways in which people use plants for medicinal purposes, including conducting pioneering research in dental health. With her husband, Walter H. Lewis, Elvin-Lewis has authored seminal works in the field of ethnobotany and conducted fieldwork throughout the world.

Early Life
Elvin-Lewis was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 1933. The daughter of Richard James Elvin and May Winnifred Foster, Elvin-Lewis loved science from an early age. As a child, Elvin-Lewis accompanied her physician father on house calls, assisting in his office as a teenager. Eager to learn as much as possible about science, Elvin-Lewis insisted on attending public school. Also interested in medicine at an early age, Elvin-Lewis volunteered in the St. John Ambulance Brigade where she served as a sergeant.

Education
Elvin-Lewis began her academic career at the University of British Columbia. When Elvin-Lewis took her first microbiology course at university, she remembers thinking, “This is it!”  Elvin-Lewis's degrees are as follows:
 * University of British Columbia, BA (1952); D.Sc. Honoris Causa (2012)
 * University of Pennsylvania, M.Sc. in Medical Microbiology (1957)
 * Baylor University (M.Sc. in Virology and Epidemiology (1960)
 * University of Leeds Ph.D. in Medical Microbiology (1966)
 * Andrews University (D.Sc. Honoris Causa (2003)

As a graduate student, Elvin-Lewis discovered and documneted the linkage between Enterovirus (ECHO) 11 and Aseptic Meningitis.

In addition to her various honorary degrees, Elvin-Lewis has been recognized with various other academic awards throughout her long and distinguished career.

Virology, Chlamydia
In the mid to late 1960s, Elvin-Lewis was a new Ph.D. specializing in Chlamydia research and working in St. Louis, Missouri at Washington University. It was there in 1968 that Elvin-Lewis became involved in the Robert Rayford case, sometimes referred to as the Robert R. case. She senior authored the first account of this interesting case.

Robert Rayford (February 3, 1953 – May 15 or May 16, 1969), sometimes identified as Robert R. was an American teenager from Missouri who is now considered to be the earliest case of HIV/AIDS in North America. Rayford's symptoms were perplexing and complex since although he lacked a normal immune response to Lymphogranuloma venereum, other symptoms were consistent with this infection. Also, his Kaposi’s Sarcoma was unique in that it was unknown at that time in the United States and was a disseminated form that had only recently been reported in 1962 in a child in Uganda. His death was attributed to these infections, lipoid exhaustion of the adrenal cortex and bronchopneumonia. Also at the time of his demise an underlying virus infection was considered as a possible explanation for his lack of immune response and other of his symptoms. This was confirmed in 1988 when antigens and antibodies of HIV were found in his tissues indicating the AIDS had also contributed to his death. Subsequently the virus was sequenced and found to be an early strain clade B subtype of HIVI closely related, but not identical, to strain III/LA1.

Media coverage of the Robert R. case can be found through The New York Times and People Magazine.

Dental Microbiology, Dental Plants, and Epidemiology
Dental microbiology is an additional field in which Elvin-Lewis made her name through eclectic fieldwork and research projects. In particular, Elvin-Lewis linked plants used to treat a variety of dental problems and hygiene with their efficacy. Elvin-Lewis's initial studies in Ghana were perhaps the first to use quantitative methods to determine the most popular chewing sticks use for teeth cleaning as efficacious against odontoperiopathic organisms. In 1975, Elvin-Lewis and colleagues at the University of Ghana surveyed over 800 individuals of equal gender and a wide range ages in 12 linguistic/tribal groups to determine their preference for taxa used for dental health. From this study, a number of plants were determined to be efficacious based first on cultural usage. These same species were later determined to contain bioreactive compounds.

This same method of surveying local populations was later used by Elvin-Lewis and her collaborators in the Amazon regions to identify plants used for both dental and medicinal purposes. This passage details a research trip that Elvin-Lewis and her husband, Walter, took to the Peruvian Amazon jungle, and the interactions they had with the native people of the region.

Elvin-Lewis has conducted additional research in the Upper Peruvian Amazon related to hepatitis remedies used among native populations. Her research in this region has been expanded to analyze "the conceptual similarities and potential therapeutic value of herbal hepatitis remedies worldwide."

Another area of Elvin-Lewis's research explores the usage and value of phytomedicines used for tuberculosis and cancer treatments, including the adverse effects of remedies that are herbal in nature.

Ethnobotany, Ethnomedicine
In the field of botany Elvin-Lewis is well-known and well-respected as an ethnobotanist. Throughout her career she has collaborated closely with her husband and partner Walter H. Lewis. Together, Elvin-Lewis and Lewis have worked in Amazonia and other areas abroad.

As an ethnobotanist, Elvin-Lewis explores and documents the ways in which indigenous peoples use plants for economic purposes. Her particular field of study includes documenting how people use plants for medicinal purposes, with special interest paid to dental health. Although their research included much work related to dental health, Elvin-Lewis and Lewis were interested, broadly, in how medicinal qualities of plants could be harnessed to use in pharmaceutical practice. When interviewing indigenous peoples, Elvin-Lewis and Lewis found that their respective genders allowed for them to learn different things about the plants and the people they studied. For example, female persons would tell Elvin-Lewis detailed information about which plants were used in childbirth and to treat menstrual symptoms, whereas Lewis (her husband) might receive insufficient information about plants used by women. Because Elvin-Lewis is active in a small field that has historically been dominated by men, this privileged access is especially notable.

Because Elvin-Lewis and Lewis were so active in the 1970s, they had the opportunity to document indigenous peoples and environments that have since been lost to industrialization and population growth. Their studies have had applications for diseases and oral infections such as tuberculosis, malaria, and viral hepatitis. Elvin-Lewis and Lewis were also active in the days before the idea of genetic ownership over compounds found in plants had not been well-established. As such, Elvin-Lewis and Lewis were able to enter countries, collect plant material, interview native peoples, and bring all of their biological material and interview data back to North America without concern about regulation. Today, questions and controversy related to genetic ownership have created more restrictive environments for North American scientists. However, since Elvin-Lewis and Lewis have been dedicated to ethical collection and usage of biological and interview information throughout their careers, they view these developments as positive for safe-guarding the well-being of native peoples and their biological property. “I feel very committed to the wonderful indigenous people we’ve been privileged to work with, and the trust they have in us so the world can benefit from their knowledge," says Elvin-Lewis.

In addition to documenting the ways in which native peoples use plants for economic purposes, Elvin-Lewis has also written on the topic of herbalism, including documenting the short-comings of certain herbal remedies to treat diseases.

Selected works and publications

 * Lewis W, Elvin-Lewis MP. (2003) Medical botany: Plants affecting human health. 2nd ed. New York: John Wiley Interscience; 812p.


 * Okunade AL, Elvin-Lewis MP, Lewis WH. (2004) Natural antimycobacterial metabolites: Current status. Phytochemistry 65:1017-1032.


 * Lewis WH, Okunade AL, Elvin-Lewis MP. Pau D'Arco or Lapacho (Tabebuia). (2005) n: Coates, P. Encyclopedia of dietary supplements. New York: Marcel Dekker; p. 527-535.


 * Elvin-Lewis, MP. (2005) Safety issues associated with Herbal Ingredients. In: Taylor, Steve L., editor. Advances in Food and Nutrition research 50:219-313. Elsevier Press.


 * Evolving concepts related to achieving benefit sharing for custodians of traditional knowledge. (2006) Ethnobotany Research and Applications 4: 75-96. (Abstract/PDF)

Awards, Honors & Appointments
Elvin-Lewis served os the president of the microbiology sections of both the American Association of Dental Schools and the International Association of Dental Research. Both presidencies marked the first time a female scientist had held such appointments.


 * Life Member, Asian Federation of Clinical Pharmacognosists (1989)
 * Honorary Life Member, International Society of Herbal Medicine (1989)
 * Fellow, International Society of Herbal Medicine (India) (1995)
 * Fellow of the Linnean Society (London) (1995)
 * Lifetime Member, International Association of Dental Research (1996)
 * Patron, Herbal Medicine and Research Centre and Hospital, Lucknow, India (1996)
 * Silver Medal, “Primio Martín De La Cruz”; Mexican Academy of Traditional Medicine, XV Internacional Congreso de Medicina Tradicional y Alternatives Terapéuticas, Mexico City, Mexico (2001)
 * Doctor of Science, Honoris Causa, Andrews University, Michigan (2003)
 * Distinguished Economic Botanist, Society of Economic Botany (2006)
 * Dr. E.K. Janaki Ammal Gold Medal, Society of Ethnobotanists, India (2008)
 * Doctor of Science, Honoris Causa University of British Columbia, (2012)
 * Alumuni Award of Distinction, University of British Columbia, (2012)
 * Alan Lesniewicz Memorial Lecturer, University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy and the UIC/NIH Center for Botanical Dietary Supplements Research (2014)