Prof. Stephen Yao Gbedema is a Professor of Pharmaceutical Microbiology and the immediate past Head of Department of Pharmaceutics (October 2019 to November 2023), Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Health Sciences, KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana.  He was the formal Head of the KNUST Herbal Medicine Department (November 2016 to July 2018).  Prof. Gbedema completed his PhD degree in 2014 on a Commonwealth Split-Site Scholarship programme at the School of Pharmacy, University of Bradford, Bradford (UK Site) and KNUST (Home site).  He was appointed to lecture in the Department of Pharmaceutics, KNUST in July 2003 after completion of M.Pharm (2002) degree from the same Department.  He also hold a B.Pharm (1998) degree, is a registered pharmacist with over 24 years of experience in pharmaceutical care provision, and a member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana.  He is also a member of the West African Health Organization (WAHO) Expert Committee on Traditional Medicine and World Health Organization (WHO) International Expert Committee on Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine. He is a visiting professor to the Madonna University School of Pharmacy at Elele – Port Harcourt in Nigeria.

For his secondary education, Prof. Gbedema attended the then Abor Experimental Junior Secondary School and passed the West African Examination Council Junior Secondary School Leaving Certificate Examination in June 1985. He proceeded to St. Paul’s Secondary School at Denu – Hatsukope in the Volta Region (for GCE ‘O’ Level; 1989) and Labone Secondary School in Accra (for GCE ‘A’ Level; 1991).  

Prof. Gbedema is passionate about traditional medicine practices involving the use of herbs and other natural products in the treatment of infections including malaria and the Neglected Tropical Diseases.  His PhD research and most other research studies he conducted were on developing phyto-medicines from folklore herbs for managing infectious conditions. For instance, after demonstrating that extracts of plants, like Polyalthia longifolia, possess anti-plasmodial activity against multidrug resistant strains of Plasmodium falciparum, he together with his research team formulated the extracts into appropriate dosage forms with improved efficacy for treating malaria in both adults and children.

Another folklore herb of much interest to Prof. Gbedema is Cryptolepis sanguinolenta popularly called the Ghana-Quinine because of its common use in malaria (and sometimes cancer) management in Ghana. Prof. Gbedema and his research team isolated the active constituent of this plant, cryptolepine, and synthesized various analogues of it which were screened against multidrug resistant strains of pathogens and a number of cancer cell lines, for their potential application in the treatment of infectious diseases and cancer.

Other studies he undertook included; Assessing the stability of hospital compounded extemporaneous oral formulations; Screening of microbial metabolites for bioactive compounds for antibiotic drug development; Developing oral thin films as a remedy for drug compliance in paediatric and geriatric patients; Evaluating the challenges and knowledge gaps in malaria therapy as a stakeholder approach to improving oral quinine use in the treatment of childhood malaria; Investigating HIV-1 patients failing protease inhibitor antiretroviral therapy for HIV resistant mutants; and the Efficacy of disinfectants commonly used in some health facilities in the Kumasi metropolis of Ghana. He has published his research findings in pear reviewed international journals and also attended numerous scientific conferences.  

Prof. Gbedema is a teacher and a mentor in the pharmaceutical microbiology discipline; he lectures in various topics to undergraduate and postgraduate students in pharmacy and some other health-related programmes in the College of Health Sciences.  Many of his past graduate students hold various positions in research and academic institutions in Ghana and abroad.