Foundation leadership
Dr. Lakisha Jenkins-Samuels
Founder and President
Dr. Lakisha Jenkins-Samuels leads Kiona Foundation's research direction and serves as Principal Investigator for KF-ECS-2025. She is a Traditional Naturopath and Clinical Herbalist with more than two decades in botanical medicine, systems-based health, and health equity.
Leadership
She leads the work.
Dr. Lakisha founded Kiona Foundation in 2003. Today she directs its research and charitable work.
Her work begins in pharmacognosy, the study of medicines derived from natural sources. It moves through novel botanical drug discovery, the FDA Botanical Drug Development pathway, and research into the endogenous cannabinoid system.
She holds a Ph.D. and the RH (AHG) credential. Her professional work has spanned botanical medicine, systems-based health, research governance, and health equity for more than two decades.
ORCID profile: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-6397-2149
View her professional record →
Public record and publication
The FDA psychedelic-hearing agenda lists Lakisha Jenkins-Samuels of Kiona Foundation as a public commenter. Her testimony page links to the hearing recording. Participation is not FDA endorsement.
She is a coauthor of Lessons learned from an academic and clinical partnership to address barriers and facilitators of cannabis education and practice. The indexed record concerns education and practice, not results from KF-ECS-2025. It reports nonfinancial Foundation support.
- Foundation
- Founder and President, Kiona Foundation Inc.
- Research
- Principal Investigator, KF-ECS-2025.
- Credentials
- Ph.D., RH (AHG).
- Practice
- Traditional Naturopath and Clinical Herbalist.
- Focus
- Pharmacognosy, botanical drug discovery, endogenous cannabinoid system research, and health equity.
Principal Investigator
KF-ECS-2025
The Foundation's research protocol examines endogenous cannabinoid system deficiency across general, clinical, and medically authorized adult and pediatric populations.
The Foundation's protocol record reports historical approval in September 2024, not current approval. Independent IRB reconstitution remains a structural step before the next submission. No current enrollment, recruitment, intervention availability or clinical results are announced. Current research status is separate from professional credentials and institutional identifiers.
The Foundation's story explains the scope of its mission.
Kiona Foundation serves people and families affected by cancer across the lifespan.