NCNPR hosts joint pharmacognosy, botanicals conferences

Guests check in at the ICSB regulatory meeting held at the Oxford Conference Center in April.

early 500 scientists from around the world will travel to Oxford next month to attend the joint American Society of Pharmacognosy Annual Meeting and International Conference on the Science of Botanicals.

“The 55th annual ASP meeting will showcase a number of disciplines relating to natural medicines, including the discovery, characterization, synthesis, biosynthesis and mechanism of natural product chemicals with druglike properties from a diversity of natural resources, including plant botanicals, which is the focus of ICSB,” said Bradley S. Moore, ASP president. “By joining these conferences, we hope to synergize these two natural product communities and foster new research opportunities.”

Hosted by the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy’s National Center for Natural Products Research, the Aug. 2-6 conferences will be held at the Oxford Conference Center. Hollis Green, the conference center’s general manager, said the event will be the venue’s largest.

“We are delighted to host this joint conference,” Green said. “I speak for the city of Oxford when I say that the number of people being brought in will certainly impact our tourism taxes. It’s exactly the type of event [for which] this facility was built.”

Ikhlas Khan, NCNPR assistant director, is looking forward to the event.

“This is our third opportunity to gather scientists from the U.S. and abroad to share their discoveries and new challenges,” Khan said. “The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Contribution of Natural Products to Human Health, Agriculture and the Environment.’ We will have prominent speakers from each respective field who will discuss past achievements and where we should go from here.”

Khan hopes that visitors will enjoy the conference while learning more about the university and pharmacy school.

“This event will have a major impact,” he said. “Our school is renowned in natural products research, and this is an opportunity to show off our facilities and the kinds of research we can do here. Additionally, our campus is beautiful, and people who visit always talk very positively about their experience.”

To register for the event or for more information, visit http://asp2014.org/.