Ole Miss Hosting Botanical Experts

OXFORD, Miss.More than 250 scientists from around the world will convene April 12 to 15 at the University of Mississippi for the ninth annual Oxford International Conference on the Science of Botanicals, hosted by the National Center for Natural Products Research (NCNPR) at Ole Miss. Among the symposium highlights will be a keynote presentation by botanical expert Norman Farnsworth, University of Illinois-Chicago, about his Phase 2 clinical trial using black cohosh and red clover; and an update on regulatory developments affecting botanical products from Malcolm Frazier, FDAs Southeast regional food and drug director.

This conference is providing a great platform to bring scientists and regulators together from around the world for the betterment of traditional medicine and dietary supplements, said Ikhlas A. Khan, assistant director of NCNPR and program director for the centers FDA Center of Excellence for Botanical Dietary Supplement Research. We are proud to host such an event every year that serves the global community.

Attendees will review and explore methods for determining the identity, purity, quality and processing of plants. Topic areas include authentication, cultivation, collection and post-harvest practices for producing quality botanical plant material and incorporating chemical and toxicological methods for quality/safety assessment that are required for the preclinical evaluation of botanicals.

This years conference is co-sponsored by FDAs Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica/Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-India, the Ministry of Indigenous Medicine-Sri Lanka, the American Society of Pharmacognosy and the Society for Medicinal Plant Research-GA.