Dr Isaac Kingsley Amponsah received his Bachelor of Pharmacy degree from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana. I obtained a KNUST scholarship to pursue my Doctor of Philosophy degree in Pharmacognosy at the same university in 2006. I have since undertaken other certificate courses in herbal medicine related fields from the Hanoi University of Pharmacy, Vietnam and i+solutions Amsterdam, Netherlands, through grants from the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ). I did my national service at the department of Pharmacognosy, was also a demonstrator and later appointed as a lecturer in 2012 at the same department, Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical sciences, KNUST. I am currently a senior lecturer of the department.

I teach various courses in Pharmacognosy on the Doctor of Pharmacy and Bachelor of Herbal medicine programmes, all in the college of health sciences. I have additional responsibility of teaching final year crop and soil science students, of the Faculty of Agriculture, conservation of medicinal plants. I also teach some courses in our MPhil and PhD pharmacognosy programmes. I have contributed to the promotion of scientific knowledge through my research in validating the pharmacological activities of indigenous medicinal plants and tracking down their chemical constituents. These publications cover plant products for the mitigation of pain and inflammation, antioxidants, anti-infectives, antidiabetics and pharmacognostic studies. I have presented some of my research findings at both local and international conferences.

I have served the university, nation and the international community in various capacities or positions. I have served on several committees within the university, at the college and Faculty levels. At the national and international levels, I have served as an examiner to several institutions including KNUST, University of Cape Coast, Ghana College of Pharmacists and University of Madonna in Nigeria. My research in herbal medicine and promotion of knowledge in same earned the national recognition of serving on the governing board of the traditional medicine practice council of Ghana. I have served on committees of the ministry of health working under the traditional medicine directorate to establish the first essential herbal medicine list and efficacy protocols for testing herbal products in Ghana. I facilitated a session in an international conference organized by the food and drugs authority of Ghana on development of herbal Pharmacopoeia’s. I have had the opportunity to serve as a traditional medicine expert committee member of the West Africa Health Organisation (WAHO), developing three technical documents in the process. Natural product research is my passion and look forward to harnessing indigenous traditional medical knowledge to mitigate the treat of emerging diseases.