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 A Field Museum Economic Botanist
While George Washington Carver could carry out much of his work with scavenged lab equipment and a mule-drawn cart, twenty-first-century U.S. scientists are more likely to be found in high-tech laboratories or flying off to attend conferences around the globe. And yet, many contemporary botanists keep a foot in each world.
The Field Museum’s Djaja Djendoel Soejarto could be a model of the two-world scientist. A research associate in the Field’s Botany Department, he is also a professor of pharmacognosy (the study of medicines from natural sources) at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
Dr. Soejarto’s Work
Dr. Soejarto’s work reaches far beyond Chicago. One week you may find him deep in the rain forests of Southeast Asia, collecting little-known plants and identifying new species, or conferring with local healers.
The next week he might be negotiating intellectual property rights with multinational pharmaceutical companies, navigating the diplomatic intricacies of governments and NGOs, or setting up a micro-loan program for poor farmers.
 Dr. Soejarto’s work addresses updated versions of the same issues that motivated Carver: discovering plants with the potential to improve health and fight diseases such as cancer, AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis; improving the standard of living in remote communities; and conserving the planet’s biodiversity.
Dr. Soejarto’s Legacy
The prospect of improving health worldwide is a gratifying one, but it’s not Dr. Soejarto’s only reward. “When I received my fellowship to Columbia, years ago, before I took off to take my assignment, they told me, ‘We’re giving you this fellowship to develop a wheel, but don’t become a part of the wheel. It has to keep spinning after you leave.’”
“That’s what I’m doing now in Vietnam and Laos—not only contributing new knowledge, but helping improve local traditional medical hospitals and schools, and increasing the capacity of our partner institutions and communities to sustain themselves and continue to advance after I’ve left—whether it’s in farming, or in discovering new species, or in taxonomy, or in bioprospecting, finding plants that can be turned into new products. Their work is my legacy.”
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