Ikhlas Khan

Dr. Ikhlas Khan is the Director of the National Center for Natural Products Research (NCNPR), Director of the FDA Center of Excellence, Research Professor, as well as Professor in the Dept of Pharmacognosy at the National Center for Natural Products Research at the University of Mississippi. Additionally, he is the Director for Sino-US TCM Research Center; Director, Center for Research of Indian Systems of Medicine (CRISM); a visiting Professor at Hunan University of Chinese Medicine, China; an Adjunct Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong; visiting professor for King Saud University, Saudi Arabia; Soochow University, and Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, China.

He received a D. Litt (Honoris Causa) from University of Hamdard, Delhi, India 2012; a B.S. in Chemistry in 1980 and a M.S. in Organic Chemistry in 1982 from the Aligarh Muslim University in Aligarh, India. Dr. Khan then received a Ph.D. in Pharmacy from the Institute fuer Pharmaceutische Biology in Munich, West Germany in 1987 and postdoctoral studies at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich. Dr. Khan began his career with the University of Mississippi in 1992 as a research scientist. He became a Research Assistant Professor in 1995, and was promoted to Research Associate Professor and Director of the FDA program in 2001, Assistant Director of NCNPR in Oct. 2002, Professor in July 2005, to Associate Director in 2015 and most recently to Director in 2017.

Dr. Khan’s primary research interests include analytical fingerprinting for standardization of herbal products, and bio-analytical approaches to improvement of product quality and safety. Dr. Khan has authored or co-authored over 840 original research articles, publications, or reviews. He has been an invited speaker at numerous events. Dr. Khan serves as reviewer for several journals.

Dr. Khan is the recipient of numerous awards, including: most recently he was awarded the “SFE Outstanding International Ethnopharmacologist Award 2025”; “Waters’ Lifetime Achievement Award 2025” ; “USP Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Standards FY23”; “Sheikh Zayed International Award for TACM 2022”; “University of Mississippi’s Distinguished Professor, 2018”; “The Wiley Award, Association of Official Agricultural Chemists International, 2018”; “Qihuang International Prize of China Association of Chinese Medicine, 2017”; “Outstanding Contributions in TCM Analysis & Quality Standards, 2017”; “Mark Blumenthal Herbal Community Builder Award, 2017”; “Cumberland Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Research Award, 2016”, “UM Distinguished Researcher Award, 2016”, “IASTAM Zandu International Award for Excellence in Field of Ayurvedic and/or Natural Products”, 2015, “Outstanding Contribution in Natural Product Research”, Water’s Corporation, given at the ICSB 2013, “The Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition” (CFSAN) Director.’s Special Citation Award, 2012; the Varro E. Tyler Prize, the American Society of Pharmacognosy, 2011; the Nutrition Business Journal Education Award, 2011; and many more.