Prof. Maurice Mmaduakolam Iwu was invited to the Board on 20th of December 2011.  He is the President of Bioresources Development Group (BDG), an independent biosciences research and development organization. He was a Professor of Pharmacognosy at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, and a Senior Research Associate at the Division of Experimental Therapeutics of Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Washington D.C. (1993-2003), where he conducted research on drug discovery for the treatment of tropical and emerging diseases.  He is a member of the Scientific Strategy Team of Etheogen Therapeutics (subsidiary of Jaguar Health Inc.) San Francisco, California.

Prof. Maurice Iwu attended the School of Pharmacy, University of Bradford, Bradford, England, where he obtained a Master of Pharmacy and Ph.D. in Pharmacognosy.  He attended the Leadership and Strategy in Pharmaceuticals and Biotech Course (Course 10) at the Harvard Business School, Boston (USA). He was awarded the Doctor of Letters degree (Honoraris Causa) of Imo State University (2009).

Prof. Iwu has received many academic and professional honors among which are the World Health Organization (WHO) Visiting Scholar to the Dyson Perrins Laboratory, University of Oxford, Fulbright Senior Scholar Award (Ohio State University, Columbus Ohio and the Department of Chemistry, Columbia University, New York; Senior Research Scholar Award, U.S. National Research Council, Washington D.C.  and the Richard Schultz International Prize for Ethnobiology,  commendation at the United States House of Representative, 106^th Congress of the United States of America (2-16-2002).  Prof. Iwu has presented over 300 scientific papers, published more than 200 research articles and is the author of several books.

He is the Chairman of the Herbal Pharmacopeia Review Committee of the Federal Ministry of Health and the Chairman of the African Union’s African Regional Organization for Standardization (ARSO) Technical Committee on Traditional Medicine. He consults on several fronts, and has served on the Boards of several non-profit and charitable foundations. His working career spans the realms of academics, research and public service.