A Tribute to Prof. Berhanu M Abegaz

Abstract

Dr. Abegaz turned his research attention to the chemistry of natural products. This work has led to approximately 125 publications and numerous invited lectures at major universities and international meetings. He has made substantial contributions to three areas of natural product research.The first area involves the isolation and characterization of novel secondary metabolites from plants traded in markets in Africa. Phenyl anthraquinones (PAQs) and isofurnaonaphthoquinones (IFNQ), for example, are relatively new classes of secondary metabolities. Although the first PAQs were isolated from the Kniphofia species, the Abegaz Group found that Bulbine species are a far richer source of PAQs and INFQs. Many of these compounds in both classes were