Professor Benoit Banga Nguessan is the Director of the Institute of Traditional and Alternative Medice at UHAS, effective August 1, 2023. He is a trained pharmacologist with expertise in ethnopharmacology-oriented drug discovery in oxidative stress-induced, non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, asthma and cancer. He is an expert in pharmacological and toxicological assessment of natural healthcare products. He also serves as an academic editor and reviewer for several international peer-reviewed journals.
Education
Prof. Nguessan has a PhD in Cellular and Molecular Aspects of Biology with a major in Pharmacology from the University of Strasbourg, France in 2003. He has an MPhil in Pharmacology and Pharmaco-Chemistry, with a major in Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology from the same university (1998). He obtained his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from the Felix Houphouet-Boigny University of Côte d’Ivoire.
Work Experience
He served as Acting Dean of the School of Pharmacy, University of Ghana (2017-2018) and Head of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at same university (2016-2020). He also consults for several institutions including the Food and Drug Authority (FDA) Ghana; National Programme for Promotion of Traditional Medicine; National Programme for the Fight against Cancer; and National Programme for the Fight against Diabetes, all in Cote d’Ivoire.
Research & Publications
Prof. Nguessan’s current research focuses on the role of oxidative stress and inflammation in the initiation and progression of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and the risk of supplement-drug interaction resulting from the administration of dietary supplements concurrently with conventional drugs, which hypothesised that glutathione-enhancer nutritional supplements (e.g., Riboceine and Cellgevity) would replenish the decreased glutathione level in the cell and reduce ROS-induced cellular damage, and therefore, prevent the initiation or reduce the progression of NCDs. Also, we hypothesised that the dietary supplements would modify liver enzymes activity (cytochrome P-450, CYPs) involved in the metabolism of conventional drugs.
His publications are accessible under Scopus Author ID: 6602668312 and Web of Science Researcher ID: AAH-6421-2020. More of his publications can be found accessed on ORCID, Elsevier Mendeley, Google Scholar, and Research Gate.
