Cannabinoids Masterclass

Daniele studied pharmacology and neuroscience with James H. Schwartz and Eric Kandel at Columbia University (1983-1988), and with Paul Greengard at the Rockefeller University (1988-1990). In 2000, two of his mentors (Kandel and Greengard) were awarded the Nobel Prize for their contributions to physiology and medicine. After working at the INSERM in Paris (France) and at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, with Nobel Laureate Gerald Edelman, Daniele joined the University of California, Irvine, where he is now Louise Turner Arnold Chair in Neurosciences and Distinguished Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Pharmacology and Biological Chemistry.

Daniele has authored over 400 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Nature, Science, Nature Medicine, PNAS and Nature Neuroscience, three full-length books, and 34 patents. He founded the department of drug discovery and development (D3) at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa (Italy), which he directed from 2007 to 2016, and three biopharmaceutical start-ups based on discoveries made in his lab.

He is director of the UCI’s Center for the Study of Cannabis and Editor-in-Chief of Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research, the only peer-reviewed journal entirely dedicated to the study of cannabis, its derivatives, and their endogenous counterparts in the human body. 

Dr Peter Bongiorno graduated from Bastyr University. He completed five years of training in naturopathic medicine and acupuncture and was honoured to be his class speaker. Before medical school, he researched as a pre-doctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland and at Yale University in New Haven Connecticut, and co-authored numerous medical journal articles in the field of neuroendocrinology. He completed his premedical studies and received a Bachelors degree in Biology and English Literature from Fairfield University.

Dr Abrams is a Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. He has an Integrative Oncology consultation practice at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. He received an A.B. in Molecular Biology from Brown University in 1972 and graduated from the Stanford University School of Medicine in 1977.

After completing an Internal Medicine residency at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Francisco, he became a fellow in Hematology/Oncology at the Cancer Research Institute of the University of California, San Francisco in 1980. He was one the original clinician/investigators to recognize and define many early AIDS-related conditions at San Francisco General Hospital where he also served as chief of Hematology-Oncology for 14 years.

He has long been interested in clinical trials of complementary and alternative medicine interventions for HIV/AIDS and cancer, including evaluations of medicinal cannabis. In 1997 he received funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to conduct a clinical trial on the short-term safety of cannabinoids in HIV infection. Subsequently he was granted funds by the University of California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research to continue studies of the effectiveness of cannabis in a number of clinical conditions.

He completed a placebo-controlled study of smoked cannabis in patients with painful HIV-related peripheral neuropathy as well as a study evaluating vaporization as a smokeless delivery system for medicinal cannabis. He conducted a NIDA-funded trial investigating the pharmacokinetic interaction between vaporized cannabis and opioid analgesics in patients with chronic pain. His last study was an NIH-funded trial evaluating vaporized cannabis in patients with sickle cell disease.

He co-authored the chapter on “Cannabinoids and Cancer” in the Oxford University Press Integrative Oncology text that he co-edited with Andrew Weil. He co-edits the NCI PDQ CAM Cannabinoids and Cancer website. He was a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s committee that published The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: Current State of Evidence and Recommendations for Research in January 2017.

Justin has spent decades exploring the diverse field of herbal medicine, both from a scientific and traditional perspective. In his early formative years he had the privilege of living in outback Jabiru in the Northern Territory for 12 months and started to develop an interest in herbal medicine from observing Australia's indigenous Aboriginals and their deep rooted knowledge of the land. It was something that stayed with him for a long time, and at 18, he started studying a Bachelor of Science (Forestry) at the Australian National University, but soon realised this was not the career he was after.

Kevin Spelman, PhD, MCPP, is an internationally recognised expert on the molecular biology and clinical therapeutics of botanical medicines. A past National Institutes of Health postdoctoral Fellow and Marie Curie research Fellow in the European Union, Dr. Spelman has published 27 scientific papers and six chapters and been involved in clinical work for two decades. Past research has included the molecular biology of cannabinoid receptors, brain and ovarian cancer, as well as clinical investigations, immunological studies and chemical analysis on various medicinal plants. International research has included the analysis of nutrient levels in teenage women in West Africa, working with children with neurological disorders in Central America, and researching medicinal plants active against malaria in Paris.

Janet Schloss is a naturopath and nutritionist in Brisbane, Australia who has been in private practice for over 15 years. Janet completed her doctorate at the School of Medicine at the University of Queensland through the Princess Alexandra Hospital. She has also lectured in naturopathy at the Endeavour College and has recently returned there.