Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

The Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) initiated the Centers for Advancing Research on Botanical and Other Natural Products (CARBON) Program in partnership with the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) in 1999, in response to a Congressional mandate.

The purpose of the CARBON Program is to promote collaborative, transdisciplinary research on the safety, effectiveness, and mechanisms of action of botanical dietary supplements that have a high potential to benefit human health and to support the development of methods and resources that will enhance the progress of this research.

The CARBON Program includes Botanical Dietary Supplements Research Centers (BDSRC), two Centers focused on enhancing methods and resources for research on the health effects of complex natural products, and pilot projects collaborating with the Centers. All the Centers are jointly funded by ODS and NCCIH, with additional funding from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) for the 2020-2025 project period. The BDSRCs focus on foundational research expected to increase the value of future clinical trials while providing a rich environment for training and career development. A Natural Product Technology, Methodology, and Productivity Optimization Center will focus on developing methods to accelerate research on complex natural products such as botanicals for human health and on collaborations to develop applications of these methods. A Natural Products Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Open Data Exchange will facilitate the accessibility and utility of natural product chemical structure data (NMR raw data). The ODS-supported pilot projects, to be awarded in response to PAR 20-228, will collaborate with these Centers, to extend understanding of products studied in the Botanical Dietary Supplements Research Centers, or to leverage methods in use in the CARBON Program for early phase research relevant to natural product dietary supplements.
Botanical Dietary Supplements Research Centers awards for 2020-2025:

• Botanicals Enhancing Neurological and Functional Resilience in Aging (BENFRA), Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR
• Influence of Dietary Botanical Supplements on Biological and Behavioral Resilience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY
• Spirulina Oral Supplement for Enhancing Host Resilience to Virus Infection, University of Mississippi, University, MS

Natural Product Technology, Methodology, and Productivity Optimization Center award for 2020-2025:

• Center for High-throughput Functional Annotation of Natural Products, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA; University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC; Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

Natural Products Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Open Data Exchange award for 2020-2025: 

• Natural Products Magnetic Resonance Database (NP-MRD), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA; Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada; University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; the University of Missouri, Columbia, MO