Meet ACHS Instructor Helen Oketch-Rabah, Ph.D. Pharmacognosy

Helen Oketch-Rabah
B.Ed (Sc), MSc (Biol), PhD (Pharmacognosy)

Hellen Oketch-Rabah, is originally from Kenya, where her father managed one of Brook Bond’s Tea manufacturing facilities in Kericho and her mother was a practicing herbalist. Hellen developed a passion for herbal medicine from childhood. In pursuit of a better understanding of plant medicines, she studied pharmacognosy at the Pharmaceutical Sciences Institute of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, where she received her Ph.D.

Thereafter she taught pharmacognosy for four years at the School of Pharmacy at the University of Nairobi, Kenya. During that period she received a research grant from the World Health Organization (WHO). Later she joined the University of California, Berkely, where she researched medicinal plants for the treatment of post-menopausal symptoms and on breast cancer biology.

Currently she is a Chief Scientist and directs and performs phytochemical analysis and medicinal plants research in one of the top U.S. dietary supplement manufacturing facilities.

Hellen believes that, as far as the potential of plants as medicines is concerned, we have only “scratched the surface.” She currently teaches Fundamentals of Toxicology and Safety in Botanical Medicine (Tox 501).