News from CRIS: Update from the CRIS Director

January 5, 2021

 

As we welcome in a new year, I hope this message finds you safe, in good health, and having found innovative ways to celebrate the holiday season. In the light of a new year, I want to update you on the great successes we’ve experienced in 2020 and our exciting goals for 2021.

At the beginning of 2020, we set ambitious goals to conduct new cannabidiol (CBD) research, publish a CBD white paper, host a CBD Science Symposium at MSU, expand our CRIS outreach, launch a CRIS-relevant radio segment on WKAR, conduct social listening on potential research topics, and welcome new CRIS partners.

As we all know, 2020 had a few unexpected surprises for us which made us make a few adjustments to achieve our goals. While it may have slowed us down, it didn’t thwart our enthusiasm nor our capacity to continue working in new ways.

We helped create and then followed safety protocols to get us back in the laboratory conducting CBD-related research. We also continued developing a CBD white paper that’s well on its way to completion. Likewise, one of our two CBD projects has now been completed.

Our current goals are to submit both the first CBD project, which is focused on defining the effects of CBD on immune competence in response to pathogen-associated motifs, and our white paper to peer-reviewed scientific journals in early or mid-2021.

Since we were not able to host an in-person CBD-Science Symposium, we transformed our symposium into a virtual event to great success. Again, many thanks to our fantastic speakers for sharing their expertise. If you missed the event, you can check out the recording of the event at your convenience.

We also leveraged our expertise and our center’s agility to connect with the larger community on ingredient safety topics to help combat misinformation and provide the public with scientifically-sound information. Our actions grew our audience in 2020 and these new individuals will help us engage with the community on ingredient safety concerns that matter to them. In 2021, we plan to resume talks with WKAR about a CRIS-relevant segment, as well as resume our social listening in a, perhaps, more collaborative manner.

While I greatly enjoy our ongoing work with our CRIS partners, I also derive great satisfaction knowing that CRIS is an open forum for the public seeking evidence-based information on ingredient safety.

I look forward to connecting with you more in 2021 and will keep you in the loop on our research, new ingredient topics, and collaborative opportunities.

As always, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Best wishes for the New Year!

Norb Kaminski, Ph.D.
Professor, Pharmacology & Toxicology
Director, Center for Research on Ingredient Safety
Director, Institute for Integrative Toxicology
Michigan State University