ALEXANDER SCHAUSS, PhD, FACN, CFS

Alexander Schauss, PhD, FACN, CFS, is the Senior Research Director of Natural and Medicinal Products Research, and CEO at AIBMR Life Sciences, in Puyallup, Washington, USA, with offices/staff in Arizona, Indiana, Colorado, and Washington.

As one of its lead scientists, Dr. Schauss has worked on projects in 45 countries for AIBMR to support research activities and handle regulatory matters for nearly 600 companies or institutions. AIBMR Life Sciences has ongoing Cooperative Research Agreements with USDA’s Agricultural Research Services (ARS) research facility in Boston, Massachusetts, and collaborates with other USDA-ARS research centers and numerous universities worldwide.

A Research Associate in the College of Science at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Dr. Schauss earned his undergraduate, graduate (summa cum laude), and doctoral degrees at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and, California Coast University in Santa Ana, respectively, completing post-graduate studies or continuing education course work at the University of New Mexico, the University of Washington at Seattle, University of Washington at Tacoma, the University of Puget Sound, the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Stanford University, Georgia State University, University of Georgia, and California State University – Fullerton.

Dr. Schauss has studied nutrition and botanical medicine since 1969, when he conducted his first clinical trial on the use of high dose oral vitamin C and its effects on opioid receptors in the treatment of heroin withdrawal syndrome; a landmark study that attracted the attention of two-time Nobel Laureate, Dr. Linus Pauling. Since then he has held a number of academic positions, including Clinical Professor of Natural Products Research and Adjunct Research Professor of Botanical Medicine at the National College of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon; Senior Director of the Southwest College Research Institute in Scottsdale, Arizona; Associate Professor of Research at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine and Health Sciences in Tempe, Arizona; Director, Institute for Biosocial Research, City University, Seattle; and, Lecturer in Biostatistics and Epidemiology at Bastyr University in Seattle.

He has been a member of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) Advisory Council (AMPAC); a member of the Ad Hoc Developmental Planning Committee of the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS); a reviewer of botanical standards and information monographs for the U.S. Pharmacopoeia Convention (USP); and, a reviewer for the International Bibliographic Information on Dietary Supplements (IBIDS) database, maintained through an interagency partnership with the Food and Nutrition Information Center, National Agricultural Library, and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Currently, he serves on one of the expert panels of USP through 2015; and, is an Advisory Board Member of the American Botanical Council, and the ORAC Database, developed by Ronald Prior, PhD.

In 1985, Dr. Schauss was appointed to represent the United States as a voting member to the World Health Organization (WHO) Study Group on Health Promotion, based on the recommendation of the Director General of WHO, Dr. Hafdan Mahler, leading to his confirmation by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

An Emeritus Member of the New York Academy of Sciences, he is the former Chairman of the Food Policy Council of the National Council for Public Health Policy, an Honorary Founding Member of the British Society of Nutritional Medicine, and Emeritus Executive Director of the American Preventive Medical Association. In 1996, he was an official NGO member of the US FDA delegation to the Codex Meeting on Special Nutritionals held in Bonn, Germany.

He is a Fellow of the American College of Nutrition (FACN), a Certified Food Scientist (CFS), and member in good standing of the: American Society of Nutrition; Society for Experimental Biology in Medicine; Society for Food Science and Technology; American College of Toxicology; American Chemical Society; and, Society of Toxicology.

In 1991, he co-founded a non-profit lobbying organization, Citizens For Health (CFH), to promote the regulation of dietary supplements, that became a critical lobbying entity recognized by the primary sponsors in Congress of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSEHA) of 1994, for the organization’s pivotal role in successfully seeking passage of this landmark legislation.

In 2005 Dr. Schauss received the Linus Pauling Lecture Award for “contributions to the medical sciences”, from the American College for the Advancement of Medicine. In 2014, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine, for a series of landmark research studies and for promoting the scientific study of nutrients and their health effects.

Besides having chaired and served on numerous Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) affirmation expert panels, Dr. Schauss has been a member of the Compliance and Labeling Integrity Committee (ComPLI) of the Natural Products Association (NPA) since 1991. (NPA is the nation’s largest natural products trade association, founded in 1936.) ComPLI oversees the association’s GMP certification program, its TruLabel Program, and makes recommendations to NPA’s Board of Directors regarding quality and purity standards for nutraceutical products sold by members of the association. The groundbreaking work of ComPLI, developed the first good manufacturing practice (cGMP) guidelines for the industry, which led to the adoption of current GMP regulations currently administered and enforced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under DSHEA.

He is the Associate Editor of the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, along with John Hoffer, MD, PhD, FRCPC, at McGill University, Canada. From 1979 to 1992, Dr. Schauss served as Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Biosocial and Medical Research. Currently, he performs peer review of manuscript submissions for over 30 scientific journals and several scientific textbook publishers.

He is the author or co-author of over 175 papers that have appeared in a diverse range of scientific journals, including: Atherosclerosis; Renal Failure; Toxicology; Nutrition; Experimental Gerontology; Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology; Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry; Food Chemistry; Journal of Food Composition and Analysis; Nutritional Neuroscience; Food and Chemical Toxicology; International Journal of Neurology; International Journal of Toxicology; Nutrition Research; Biological Trace Element Research; Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry; Journal of Medicinal Food; and, the Journal of the American College of Nutrition.

Besides being the author/co-author of 23 books in the fields of nutrition and botanical medicine, some of which have been published in numerous languages, Dr. Schauss has authored 34 chapters published in a wide range of edited works, including chapters in all four editions of the Textbook of Natural Medicine (Elsevier Science: Oxford, UK); the review chapter on vitamin E tocotrienols in the definitive work, Tocotrienols: Vitamin E Beyond Tocopherols (CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL); the safety of tocotrienols, in Tocotrienols: Vitamin E Beyond Tocopherols, Second Edition (AOCS Press/CRC Press/Francis & Taylor); culinary spices in cancer chemoprevention, in Bioactive Foods and Extracts – Cancer Treatment and Prevention (CRC Press, Taylor & Francis: Boca Raton, FL); three chapters in Bioactive Foods in Promoting Health (Academic Press: Oxford, UK); Dried Fruits – Phytochemicals and Health Applications (Blackwell/Wiley & Sons: Chichester, UK); Bioactive Foods as Dietary Interventions for Arthritis and Related Inflammatory Diseases (Elsevier: Oxford, UK); Bioactive Nutraceuticals and Dietary Supplements in Neurological and Brain Disease: Prevention and Therapy (Academic Press and Elsevier, Oxford, UK); Polyphenols in Human Health and Disease (Academic Press and Elsevier: Oxford, UK); and, Bioactive Foods and Extracts: Cancer Treatment and Prevention (CRC Press).

Among many of his research activities, one series of studies, in collaboration with the USDA, NIH, and several universities, that began 20 years ago in 1995, has focused on the characteristics, properties and attributes of the fruit of two Amazonian palms, Euterpe oleracea and Euterpe precatoria, commonly known as “Acai.” This led to the discovery of the most potent class of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory flavonoids found in nature, with demonstrated in vivo potential health disease protective bioactivities. Current research is focusing on the fruit pulp’s neuroprotective properties against a host of neurodegenerative and aging-related diseases, in collaboration with USDA and Tufts University.