Working in Peru

My adventures in Peru have been great this month. I have spent the majority of my time identifying plants in the Universidad Privada Antenor Orrego (UPAO) herbarium with the help of Mario Zapata. Because of permit processes and changes in government agencies the plants we collected in Peru last year never made it to MBG, hence, I am here identifying them. (We collected over 500 medicinal plants from the market last year). We are also preparing the plants to go through a series of chemical tests later this summer…meaning that we are grinding the bulk material into powder. We have had several students from the Universidad Nacional de Trujillo help us in this process. It's about a 10 minute bus ride between the two Universities. Here are some pictures of our incredible team here in Peru:

Mario Zapata from UPAO (outside the herbarium)

Me and Diana outside Universidad Nacional

Grinding plants

We use meat grinders

Majer (one of the chemists helping out)
...writing the plan for bioassays and
phytochemistry on the chalkboard for the students.
Some of the team.

Gonzalo showing the finished product...ground Puya.
Gonzalo is the coordinator for the team here in Peru but

at the end of this month will to continue his
studies in Germany.
Team work: Johann and Pilar
Diana and her professor weighing out samples.
A great team to work with!! Wonderful, wonderful people.