Message from the President

Society for Medicinal Plant and Natural Product ResearchGesellschaft für Arzneipflanzen- und Naturstoff-Forschung e.V.

NEW

SLETTER

NEW

SLETTER

Dear members,

the last annual congress of GA, held in Berlin, Ger-many (together with the 7th Tannin Conference asPresymposium), was again very well attended andsuccessful. You will find a special report in thisNewsletter. We could attract especially manyyoung scientists from all parts of the world. So theGA meeting became again a platform for anexchange of knowledge and ideas betweenscientists from different regions. On behalf of GA,I want to thank the organizers of the congress,Profs. Matthias Melzig and Herbert Kolodziej andtheir supporting team. They have put together avery attractive scientific and social programme,and have set up a perfect organization, so thateverybody felt very pleased. They did an excellentjob and we will keep the Berlin meeting in bestremembrance. I am also very grateful to thesponsors who allowed to keep the fees relativelysmall.More than 650 abstracts of the presentations haveagain been published in Planta Medica, the officialorgan of our Society (see Planta Medica 76 (12),2010 and GA homepage). I want to thank the pub-lisher, Thieme Verlag Stuttgart, Dr. Regina Wenzel,the issue editors Profs. Matthias Melzig and Her-bert Kolodziej very much for all their efforts and forthe good collaboration.During the congress, the Dr. Willmar Schwabe-Award of GA was awarded for the third time, win-ner of the 2010 award is Prof. Dr. Jürg Gertsch(Switzerland). Dr. Melanie Laszczyk (Germany) hasbeen announced as the winner of the Egon Stahlaward in Bronze 2010. Prof. Dr. Arnold Vlietinck(Belgium) was awarded the Honorary Membershipof the GA in recognition of his extraordinary con-tributions to medicinal plant research and his longand intense engagement for the aims of our soci-ety. As in previous years, GA has also supportedyoung scientists with travel grants.The attractiveness of medicinal plant research canbe seen in the number of scientists attending our

Message from the President

2010, No. 2

meetings/workshops in 2010 (exemplary 9th An-nual Oxford International Conference on the Sci-ence of Botanicals, April 2010, Mississippi, U.S.A.;14th International Congress “Phytopharm 2010”,July 2010, St. Petersburg, Russia; 3rd ShanghaiInternational Conference on Traditional ChineseMedicine and Natural Medicine, October 2010,Hangzhou, China). Due to the international impor-tance of medicinal plant research, such global net-working is extremely necessary and fruitful.The next and 59th annual congress of GA will beheld in Antalya (Turkey) and will be organized byProf. Baser and his team. I hope that many of youwill attend and old and new members meet againat this very attractive event. Please visit the GAhomepage regularly for updated information onthis congress (http://www.ga2011.org/).The BoD of GA has decided to award an increasednumber of travel grants in 2011. In total 15.000 €will be spent for PhD students and post docs in or-der to support them to be able to attend the nextannual congress.Besides our annual congress, GA is again co-organizing several other symposia on medicinalplant and natural product research during the year2011, and I hope that you can attend some ofthese meetings as well. You can find the cor-responding information on our website (www.ga-online.org).I am very happy that we can announce a furtheraward of GA in 2010/11: the Dr. Willmar SchwabeResearch Scholarship for Young Scientists of theSociety for Medicinal Plant and Natural ProductResearch. This scholarship is sponsored with10.000 € and will support research of young scien-tists, especially from developing countries in lead-ing research institutions. On behalf of GA, I wantto thank Dr. Willmar Schwabe GmbH & Co. KGvery much for this scholarship. The promotion ofyoung scientists is a major mission of GA, we havethus added a new menu item “Young Re-searchers” to the left menu bar of the homepage.This provides a direct link to a number of relevanttopics for our young members.We are observing an increasing international inter-est in a membership in GA and have recentlyachieved about 1500 members from more than 80nations; I want to welcome all colleagues whohave joined our Society in the last year as new andactive members of the GA family.Finally I wish you a healthy, lucky and successfulyear 2011 and I am looking forward to seeingmany of you in Antalya.

Cordially

GA

Brigitte Kopp, GA president

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(to our knowledge)

Professor Edward Joseph ShellardPassed away 19.06.2010

Professor Dr. Detlef GrögerPassed away 27.06.2010

See also also obituaries in thisNewsletter

The Society will keepcommemoration and offers its

sincere condolence.

Deceased members

Notes to all GA members

The Society informs

All contributions for theGA-Newsletter are welcome.

Deadline for submission is fixedto Mai 20th 2011.

Please send all contributionsby e-mail to:

Prof. Dr. A. HenselUniversity of Münster, Institute for

Pharmaceutical Biology andPhytochemistry, Hittorfstrasse 56,

D-48149 Münster, [email protected]

Editorial remark

A new profile for Planta MedicaScience keeps on moving very fast and sois Planta Medica. Due to the growing im-pact worldwide of the field of medicinalplant and natural product research, andthe appeal of Planta Medica as a scientificforum, the number of submitted manu-scripts is increasing year by year, and iswell over 1,100 now on an annual basis.Whereas the 1000th manuscript was re-ceived in 2009 on 14 November, this num-ber has already been reached in 2010 on19 October. Anticipating this tendency, thePublisher and the Editorial Board had al-ready decided to increase the number ofissues of Planta Medica to 17 in 2010, andfrom 2011 on 18 issues will be published.Since Planta Medica is the official organ ofGA – the Society for Medicinal Plant andNatural Product Research – one of theseissues is devoted each year to the annualcongress of GA, and is the official book ofabstracts of the congress. In 2010, thismeeting was organised by Matthias Melzigand Herbert Kolodziej in Berlin from 29 Au-gust till 2 September 2010 (Planta Medica2010; 76: 1163-1374). Next year’s meetingwill be organised in Antalya by HüsnüBaser from 4 till 9 September 2011, an-other indication of the continuously grow-ing globalisation of GA. Again one of thePlanta Medica issues of 2011 will containall abstracts of the presentations at thismeeting.In addition to these congress issues, thePlanta Medica policy of publishing twospecial issues each year will be continued.In 2010, issue 11 was a Special Issue onCancer Therapy with Natural Products,with Thomas Efferth as guest editor, andissue 17 a Special Issue on Traditional Chi-

nese Medicine, with Rudolf Bauer andKelvin Chan as guest editors. In 2011, againtwo special issues are scheduled, onedealing with Tropical Diseases, and a sec-ond one containing selected contributionsfrom the Annual Congress in Berlin, 2010.In the light of the steadily growing numberof manuscript submissions from contin-uously diverting fields of interest, theEditorial Board has also decided to repro-file the journal and to focus the journal onits core competencies. From 2011 on,Planta Medica will have the following 4sections:1. Biological and pharmacological activity

(including biological screening studies);2. Pharmacokinetic investigations and

clinical studies (pharmacokinetic inves-tigations examining the kinetics of drugdisposition and bioavailability includingthe use of in vitro, in vivo and humanstudies);

3. Natural Product Chemistry;4. Analytical Studies.This implies that articles on the former sec-tions of plant biochemistry, plant molecularbiology and plant biotechnology will nolonger be published. This field is coveredby many more specialised journals. Bynarrowing the scope of the journal, morespace will be created for submissions inthe core fields of Planta Medica.I would like to invite all GA members tosubmit their research papers that fit intothis profile to “our” journal Planta Medica,the official organ of GA – the Society forMedicinal Plant and Natural Product Re-search!In addition, in order to further increase thescientific quality of manuscripts published

in Planta Medica, even higher standardswill be imposed at the incoming level.Planta Medica will only accept the mostinteresting pharmacological investigationsof well-characterised extracts and purenatural compounds, as well as ground-breaking pharmacokinetic and clinicalstudies. It will further focus on the isolationand structure elucidation of interestingnew compounds, and on innovative ana-lytical studies reporting new approachesor techniques.For the fourth consecutive year the impactfactor of Planta Medica has increased andis 2.037 now; this is accompanied by agrowing total number of citations to PlantaMedica. The Editorial Board of the journalis confident that reprofiling the journal andthe new policy that has been set will con-tinue to support its further development asa high quality journal in the field of medic-inal plant and natural product research. Toachieve this, the Editors need the continu-ing support of many scientists who reviewand comment on the submitted manu-scripts. The Editorial Board and the Pub-lisher of Planta Medica gratefully acknow-ledge the time-consuming but highly valu-able efforts provided by the reviewers on avoluntary basis.I wish you all a successful and stimulating2011!

Prof. Dr. Luc Pieters, Editor-in-Chief

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With the aim of improving our homepage,two new features have been implemented.Starting August 2010 visitors have an op-tion to quickly get basic informationsabout GA in 20 different languages, rightfrom the starting home page (http://www.ga-online.org). This feature will also help tospread information about GA through in-ternet search engines, and the like.The promotion of young scientists is amajor mission of GA. Thus, by December

2010 we have added a new menu item“Young Researchers” which links to nu-merous relevant topics. Apart from thebenefit for GA members, this new contentwill also surely attract putative new GAmembers.Any comments and suggestions concern-ing the homepage are always welcome!

Prof. Dr. Christoph Wawrosch,GA Webmaster

Message from our Webmaster

The new WWW starting page of GA

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The GA board (executive and advisory board, secretary and newsletter and Planta Medica editors) at work: many discussions andplannings before the Berlin GA conference in August 2010.

Notes from the Society

Anouncement for Egon-Stahl-Award in Gold 2011

The Egon-Stahl-Award in Gold is the high-est scientific honour of the Society for Me-dicinal Plant and Natural Product Research(GA). It can be awarded every third year.The Egon-Stahl-Award in Gold acknow-ledges the outstanding scientific lifetimework of a research scientist who has beenclosely attached to Pharmaceutical Biol-ogy (Pharmacognosy, Chemistry of NaturalProducts), in its whole range, through hisscientific work.The prize will be awarded

during the annual congress of the Societyfor Medicinal Plant and Natural ProductResearch. The candidate will have the op-portunity to present a scientific contribu-tion. Nominations can be made by all reg-ular members of the Society for MedicinalPlant and Natural Product Research. Nom-inations of oneself can not be considered.Nominations must be submitted to thePresident of the Society for MedicinalPlant and Natural Product Research until1st. of March 2011.The following must be enclosed with thenomination� a detailed acknowledgment of the scien-

tific works� names of further experts who could be

consulted.The President, the Vice-Presidents, theTreasurer and the Secretary of the Society

for Medicinal Plant and Natural ProductResearch will give expert advice about thenominations submitted and make a selec-tion. The President is free to consult furtherexperts.The Egon-Stahl-Award in Gold is endowedwith € 5.000.All documents have to be submitted inelectronic form (as CD in 5 copies). Dead-line for submissions is March 1, 2011.

Prof. Dr. Brigitte Kopp, GA president

Documents to be sent to:

Prof. Dr. Brigitte Kopp, Department ofPharmacognosy, University of Vienna,Centre of Pharmacy, Althanstr. 14, A-1090Vienna, Austria

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On the occasion of his 60th birthday, Pro-fessor Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Egon Stahl donateda medal, a document and a monetary prizein order to recognize and promote youngscientists working in the field of Pharma-cognosy (Pharmaceutical Biology) and An-alytical Phytochemistry. As a rule, the silver

medal and an award of € 3.000 should beawarded to scientists up to the age ofabout forty, who have published outstand-ing scientific work during the years follow-ing their graduation. In 2011 the ESA Silverwill be given during the 59th Internationalcongress and annual meeting of GA inAntalya on Sep 4–9, 2011 (www.ga2011.org). Members of the Society for MedicinalPlant and Natural Product Research (GA)are invited to submit nominations for can-didates together with supporting data tothe president of GA. A nomination for theprize has to include a curriculum vitae in-corporating the candidate’s scientific ca-reer, an index on her/his publications, and

reprints of several of his/her more recentpublications. All publications can be takeninto consideration.All documents have to be submitted inelectronic form (as CD in 5 copies). Dead-line for submissions is March 15, 2011.




Anouncement for Egon Stahl-Award in Silver 2011

The symbol of the Bionorica PytoneeringAward “Key to Science”

Anouncement for the Bionorica Phytoneering Award 2011 of GA –Society for Medicinal Plant and Natural Product Research

Awarding Institution: Society for MedicinalPlant and Natural Product Research (GA)Endowing Sponsor: Dr. Willmar SchwabeGmbH & Co. KG, Karlsruhe (Germany)Objective: The aim of the Dr. WillmarSchwabe Research Scholarship for YoungScientists is to support research of youngscientists, especially from developingcountries in leading research institutions.Projects focusing on pharmacological orclinical research of phytopharmaceuticalsand their active substances are particularlywelcome. The award is exclusively usedfor travelling and living costs of theawardee and not for consumables.A duration of at least 6 months is manda-tory.Endowment: 10.000 EURO

Criteria for Application:� Advanced (year 2 onwards) PhD stu-

dents and postdocs.� In case of similar scientific quality of ap-

plications applicants from developingcountries shall have priority.

� GA membership for at least one yearprior to the application.

� Age: preferably 30 years of age (post-docs) or younger (PhD students).

� The hosting institution states in the Let-ter of Acceptance that it is prepared tocover the cost for the consumables usedfor the research project, that the studentwill have an adequate laboratory infra-structure and that a tutor is assigned,who supervises the applicant duringhis/her working period.

� Documents for Application:� Letter of Motivation (applicant)� Letter of Support (supervisor)� CV and list of publications� Project description including experimen-

tal design, time schedule and justifica-tion why the research shall be performedin the respective institution

� Letter of Acceptance (hosting institution)� Confirmation of the host institution to cov-

er the laboratory costs (consumables)� Specification of costs for travelling and

livingAll documents have to be submitted to thepresident of the Society for Medicinal Plantand Natural Product Research in electronicform (as CD-Rs in 5 copies) until a fixeddeadline.

The Bionorica Phytoneering Award (BPA)acknowledges outstanding research in thefield of development and application ofphytopharmaceutical products. The awardis endowed with 10,000 € by the endowingsponsor Bionorica SE, Neumarkt (Ger-many). The aim of the award is to motivatepreferentially young scientists (normallyyounger than 45) to perform research inthe following areas:� pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinet-

ics of herbal medicinal products andtheir active principles

� clinical research in the areas of respira-tory tract infections, inflammation, wo-men’s health, and metabolic syndrome

� safety and pharmacovigilance studies.

Scientists or research groups of universi-ties and other non-commercial scientificinstitutions are entitled to apply. Scientificpublications on a specific topic which havebeen published during the last three yearscan be considered. They must be submit-ted together with a CV and a list of publi-cations to the president of GA, in elec-tronic form (as CD in 5 copies) until April15, 2011.The Bionorica Phytoneering Award will bebestowed during the annual 59th GA con-gress in Antalya, Sep 4–9, 2011, (www.ga2011.org), the awarded scientific resultsshall be presented during the annual con-gress in a lecture of half an hour (detailedinformation here).




Announcement for the Dr. Willmar Schwabe Research Scholarship for Young Scientists

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The distinguished British Professor “Joe”Shellard died on June 19th 2010 aged 96years. Prof Shellard moved to the Phar-macy Department at Chelsea College in1957 and soon afterwards he was awardedhis PhD for studies on Ipomoea and Jalapresins. The Pharmacy Department atChelsea was becoming known worldwidein the late 1950s and the 1960s for thequality and amount of research being car-ried out, and Prof Shellard played a majorpart in building this reputation by estab-lishing a pharmacognosy research groupthat was the leader in the UK. It was due tohis efforts that the technique of thin-layerchromatography was introduced to phar-maceutical science in the UK. It is difficultto exaggerate the huge difference that thismade at the time to the rapid isolation ofcompounds from plant extracts and itsvalue in evaluating of crude drugs, since itadded a completely novel dimension to the“classical” macroscopical, microscopicaland “wet test” techniques which had beenused until then.In the 1960s Prof Shellard became knownthroughout the world for his research onthe alkaloids found in the genus Mitragynaand published over 40 research papers onthis topic. These alkaloids are still the sub-ject of interest and research in variouscountries because of their effects on thecentral nervous system (the research be-gan because of the opium-like effects ofthe leaves of M. speciosa, a drug of abusefrom Malaysia and Thailand), on the car-diovascular system (as ingredients of thehooks of Uncaria rhynchophylla used inChinese medicine) as a hypotensive, andas immunostimulant compounds in theherbal drug Cat’s Claw. There is little doubtthat this corpus of research made a largecontribution to well-deserved appointmentto a Chair in Pharmacognosy at Chelsea in1969.He was a great encourager of young scien-tists and his research lab became the incu-bator for those who became prominentpharmacognosists in several countries

overseas, notably Ghana and Thailand.However, in his later years he was alwaysvery proud that his research group hadalso produced four British professors inpharmacognosy (Prof. Dave Phillipson,Prof. Norman Bisset, Prof. Peter Hylandsand myself).

This was a notable because the strength ofpharmacognosy at Chelsea was in con-trast to the fate of the subject in most otherBritish Schools of Pharmacy in the 1960sand 1970s. Its survival in the UK waslargely due to the heroic efforts of ProfShellard, in the teeth of considerable hos-tility from some quarters. He championedthe subject in discussions with the RoyalPharmaceutical Society, and by his per-suasive oratory at its biennial conferencesof teachers of pharmacy, at the BritishPharmaceutical Conference and in interna-tional pharmacy.Joe Shellard became known throughoutthe world through his leadership and activeinvolvement in the Medicinal and AromaticPlants Section of FIP (the InternationalPharmaceutical Federation). In the 1950sthis was the only international forum forpharmacognosists, and Prof. Shellard wasa popular and very active leader in thegroup, as he was in the GA for many years.He established contacts with many differ-ent countries and there was always at leastone visiting researcher in his labs atChelsea, which laid a pattern for over 30years for the group there and later as partof Kings College London.Prof Shellard pioneered the teaching ofpharmacognosy in the UK from a chemi-cal, as well as a botanical aspect. He intro-duced the use of small projects in teachingundergraduates at Chelsea in the late1960s, when this approach was still verynovel in UK universities.Special mention should be made of thepart played by Prof. Shellard in the early1970s in setting up a dialogue with Britishherbalists and introducing them to scien-tific aspects of their field of interest. A

weeklong summer school for herbalistsand herbal product manufacturers on sci-entific evaluation techniques was organ-ised in 1974 and was a key factor in thedevelopment of the British Herbal Phrama-copeia, in which Joe took a key interest.Prof Shellard was not someone who couldbe forgotten easily because of his strengthof character, his enthusiasm, his politicaland administrative skills but most of all be-cause of his warmth of heart towards hisstaff and students, and their families. Helived for over 30 years after his retirement,and had the satisfaction of seeing pharma-cognosy at Chelsea, later King’s, not onlysurvive but flourish, and maintain the sub-ject being taught and research progressingin several other UK schools of pharmacy.His valiant efforts in preserving the princi-ples and practices of pharmacognosyhave borne fruit in their now being muchmore accepted as necessary for the scien-tific evaluation of herbal and other comple-mentary medicine products.

Prof. Peter Houghton, London, U.K.

Jury: The president of the Society for Me-dicinal Plant and Natural Product Researchappoints at least 2 independent experts toevaluate and compare the submitted appli-cations.The jury will decide on the basis of the ex-pertises and select the winner.The jury consists of the president and thevice-presidents of the Society for Medici-nal Plant and Natural Product Research,the editor-in chief of Planta Medica and arepresentative of Dr. Willmar SchwabeGmbH & Co. KG.

Further details: The Dr. Willmar SchwabeResearch Scholarship for Young Scientists

will be bestowed in a ceremony during theAnnual Congress of the Society for Medic-inal Plant and Natural Product Research.The scientific results of the project shall bepresented during the next annual congresspreferably in a short lecture (or at least asa poster).The awardee has to prepare a final reporton the research supported by this grantand its outcome. This report has to besigned by the head of the research institu-tion. A copy of the signed report has to besent to the GA president and to Dr. WillmarSchwabe GmbH & Co. KG. In case of pub-lication of the results the award has to bementioned in the Acknowledgement.

The award is announced via the website ofGA, a circular email to all GA members, inthe GA newsletter and during the AnnualCongress of the Society for MedicinalPlant and Natural Product Research via aninfo flyer.

The deadline for submissions for the 2010announcement is December 31, 2010.

Documents to be sent to:Prof. Dr. Brigitte Kopp, Department ofPharmacognosy, University of Vienna,Centre of Pharmacy, Althanstr. 14, A-1090Vienna, Austria. mail: [email protected]

Obituary – Professor Edward Joseph Dr. Shellard

Prof. Schellard at the occasion of his 90thbirthday

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Honorary Membership of the Society to Arnold J. Vlietinck

Arnold Vlietinck obtained his pharmacist’sdegree in 1964 at the University of Leuven,and his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciencesat the same university in 1968.He obtained the position of research assis-tant as a Fulbright-Hays, NATO- andWHO-fellow at the School of Pharmacy,University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA(1973–1974).In 1974 he became professor of pharma-cognosy and phytochemistry at the newlyfounded University of Antwerp. He startedthe different research lines that haveturned the laboratory into a highly perform-

ing research unit on national and interna-tional level – his research profile is broadcovering the topics of plant extracts,flavonoids, antivirals, some alkaloids,complement inactivator proteins, sapo-nins, antimalarials and antidiabetic andanti-tumoral substances. In summary, hewas very successful in the areas of struc-ture elucidation, biological activity, qualityof herbal medicinal products, and theirregulation. A lot of his valuable papers to-gether with his group he has published inour journal Planta Medica. – Prof. Vlietinckis author or co-author of more than 230

scientific publications in internationalscientific journals, and of an importantnumber of chapters in books, and he ismember of the Editorial Board of importantjournals in the field of pharmacognosy andnatural products.The multitudinous lists of all his awards,memberships in Professional Societies, hisactivities in teaching, his editorial and ad-visory activities and scientific and organi-sational activities reflect his wide and ex-cellent experience in pharmacognosy andphytochemistry. Besides his daily aca-demic work, he held executive positions in

Obituary – Professor Dr. Detlef Gröger

Professor Dr. Detlef Gröger, a grand-seigneur of pharmacognosy and naturalproducts research passed away on Sun-day June 27th 2010 in Halle/Saale. He wasan outstanding personality, an eminentscientist and the recipient of internationalhonours.

Detlef Gröger was born on March 28th,1929 in Zschortau near Delitzsch, Saxony,and attended elementary school therefrom 1935 to 1939. In 1939 he joined theKönig-Albert Gymnasium in Leipzig, fromwhich he graduated in 1947. After a transi-tion period as a laborer in the film factoryWolfen he joined the “Löwen Apotheke” inDelitzsch from 1948 to 1950 for practicaltraining in pharmacy. This was followed bythe study of pharmacy at the Martin-LutherUniversity Halle-Wittenberg, and he sub-sequently joined the group of the late Pro-fessor Kurth Mothes at the Institute ofGenetics and Plant Cultivation in Gaters-leben. This step was decisive in DetlefGröger’s development, setting him on thecourse towards a career in research. Healso met there his future wife, Lisa Bruhn.He earned his PhD degree in 1957 with athesis on ergot alkaloids. In 1958 hemoved with the research group of Profes-sor Mothes to the Institute of Biochemistryof Plants in Halle/Saale, where subse-quently he established his own researchgroup. In short order, this Institute, andwith it Detlef Gröger, became knownworldwide for research on natural prod-ucts, chemical plant physiology and phar-maceutical sciences. Detlef Grögers re-cognition continued to grow with his aca-demic accomplishments. Having com-pleted his habilitation in 1963 he became adocent at the Martin-Luther UniversityHalle-Wittenberg, where he taught Phar-maceutical Biology. In 1971 he was recog-nised by appointment as a Professor bythe Academy of Sciences and at the Uni-versity. In 1979 he served as a VisitingProfessor at Purdue University, WestLafayette, USA and in 1993 was named anAffiliate Professor of Medicinal Chemistryat the University of Washington in Seattle.

By far the most prominent topic of hisscientific work were the ergot alkaloids. Heinvestigated biotechnological aspects ofthe production of these pharmaceuticallyimportant compounds by traditional fieldcultivation and by newly developed meth-ods for submerged fermentation of Clavi-ceps strains. The second focus of his ergotwork became the biosynthetic pathway bywhich these alkaloids are synthesised inthe fungus. Beyond just demonstrating theincorporation of potential precursors he pi-oneered the isolation and characterisationof enzymes catalysing some of the steps inthis complicated pathway, at a time whenfew enzymes of natural product biosynthe-sis had been detected.

Although the ergot alkaloids were his fa-vorites they were by no means DetlefGröger’s only scientific interest. From earlyon he tackled new problems in biosynthe-sis. Many of the compounds studied werehigher plant alkaloids but also non-alka-loidal compounds like ergochromes andtheir origin from anthraquinones. The tech-niques he employed spanned a wide rangefrom isotope studies to molecular biologi-cal investigations. His scientific and pro-fessional accomplishments were recog-nized by the award of the Hufeland Medalin Gold, the Nationalpreis of the DDR, andmost recently, of the Egon Stahl Medal inGold.

His life and work were very much influ-enced by the political situation in theGerman Democratic Republic (DDR). In1960/61, thanks to the efforts of Prof.Mothes, whom he promised to return,Detlef Gröger and his wife Lisa were ableto spend a postdoctoral year in the labora-tory of Professor V.E. Tyler in Seattle, USA.During this time the Berlin wall waserected. Being a man of his word, DetlefGröger resisted the temptation to stay inthe West and the Grögers returned to theinstitute in Halle. He was an early memberof the “Gesellschaft für Arzneipflanzen-forschung”, but the communist authoritieslater forced him to wihdraw his member-

ship. Despite the intense pressure by theDDR to isolate its scientists from the Westby restricting scientific communicationsand contacts, Prof. Gröger courageouslykept up international interactions, whichhelped him maintain a very high scientificstandard in his research.

Detlef Gröger was an accomplished scien-tist of high personal integrity. He was alsoa very friendly person who had a goodsense of humor – just take a look at hispicture. Appropriately, his remains wereburied on the St. Laurentius cemetery inHalle/Saale, right next to the Botanical In-stitute were he used to lecture and theBotanical Garden where he grew hisplants. Our thoughts are with his wife Lisaand their children and grandchildren.

Prof. Dr. E. Leistner(University of Bonn, Germany)

Prof. Dr. H. G. Floss(University of Washington, Seattle)

Prof. Gröger at the occasion of the 2005GA conference in Florence

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the national and European Pharmacopoeiacommittees and other official commissionson European level where regulations andlegislation on herbal medicinal productshave been and still are being discussedand prepared, which he strongly influ-enced by his broad and well-foundedknowledge.More than for any other reason, the impor-tant role Prof. Vlietinck has played in thefield of quality, safety and efficacy of herbalmedicinal products on European and evenglobal level make him a valuable candidatefor the honorary membership of GA, forwhich he was highly engaged in the agen-das not only as a common member butalso within the BoD and by arranging “his”Permanent Committee. He also organizedthe 1984 GA meeting in Antwerp, which isin best commemoration of all who had at-

tended it. As far as I know Arnold, he wasalways a constructive speaker in many dis-cussions about the daily task and thefuture of GA, its journal Planta Medica aswell as the organization of annual meet-ings.

The Society for Medicinal Plant and Natu-ral Product Research (GA) is awarding theHonorary Membership to Prof. Dr. ArnoldJ. Vlietinck in recognition of his extraordi-nary contributions to medicinal plant re-search, especially in the areas of structureelucidation, biological activity, quality ofherbal medicinal products and their regula-tion, and his long and intense engagementfor the aims of our society.

Prof. Brigitte Kopp, President of GA

Dr. Willmar Schwabe-Award to Prof. Jürg Gertsch

Professor Gertsch, a biochemist, startedhis transdiciplinary research on bioactivenatural products in the field of ethnophar-macology in 1997 as a PhD student in thegroup of Professor Otto Sticher at the ETHZürich. During this time he carried out eth-nobotanical and ethnopharmacologicalfieldwork among the Yanomami Amerindi-ans in the Amazon of Venezuela. He thenworked on the phytochemistry of selectedplants and the setup of new high-contentcellular assays in the area of inflammationand anti-cancer screening. As a conse-quence, he became interested in highlybioactive NPs and in 2003 he started post-doctoral work in the laboratory of Profes-sor Karl-Heinz Altmann at the Departmentof Chemistry and Applied Biosciences ofthe ETH Zurich, working on microtubule-targeting anticancer agents, includingepothilones and other macrocyclic com-pounds. He then established his owngroup and became a senior scientist andlecturer at the ETH Zürich. During thesame time he started to work on the mo-

lecular mechanisms of action of the bioac-tive lipids from Echinacea. After havingdiscovered a link between the immuno-modulatory effects of N-alkylamides andthe cannabinoid CB2 receptor he becameinterested in immunopharmacology andthe endocannabinoid system. The majorityof his ongoing projects are now related tothe biochemistry of the endocannabinoidsystem. Prof. Gertsch and collaboratorsdescribed several natural products that in-terfere with the endocannabinoid system.Among them, the sesquiterpene beta-caryophyllene, one of the most wide-spread essential oil components, potentlyactivates the CB2 receptor, leading to pro-found antiinflammatory and analgesic ef-fects. Beta-caryophyllene was thoroughlystudied both in vitro and in animal experi-ments using knockout mice. Currently, thisdietary and FDA approved food additive isbeing studied in different laboratories andmight potentially be a novel essential di-etary factor able to prevent inflammatorylifestyle diseases in addition to vitamins

and fatty acids. Pilot clinical trials will bethe next step to evaluate efficacy in hu-mans. Inspired by the organic synthesisenvironment at the ETH, Prof. Gertsch syn-thetically explored the bioactive dodecadi-ene isobutylamide scaffold in the search ofblockers of endocannabinoid cellular reup-take and novel anti-inflammatory agents.Highly potent leads were found and theproject is now continued at industry.Since 2009 Prof. Gertsch is at the Univer-sity of Bern, at the Institute of Biochemistryand Molecular Medicine, where he nowholds a chair in membrane biochemistry.Since 2010 he is also an IP in the Swissfunded NCCR program TransCure wheremembrane transporters will be studied aspotential targets for drug discovery. Thetransition from molecular pharmacology toin vivo pharmacology is a major concern inhis new group, but he is also interested inissues related to reverse pharmacologystarting from traditional medicinal plants oragents to the elucidation of molecularmechanisms of action.His contributions impressively show thatnatural compounds still play an importantrole in drug discovery and development.

The price winner together with Dr. Meng (Dr. Wilmar Schwabe GmbH & Co. KG) and GApresident Prof. B. Kopp.

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Dr. Melanie Laszczyk studied biotechnol-ogy at Mannheim Technical College.During a term of work-experience as partof her diploma course, Melanie Laszczykgained her first experience of triterpeneextracts from birch and mistletoe at theCarl Gustav Carus-Institute. In 2004, shestarted research for her doctorate on thetriterpenes from birch bark at the Facultyof Biology of the University of Freiburg,Germany, under the supervision of Dr. Mar-tin. This involved interdisciplinary work atthe company Birken GmbH, the Carl Gus-tav Carus-Institute and Freiburg UniversitySkin Clinic. Because of the outstandingquality of her thesis, Melanie Laszczyk re-ceived her doctorate in 2007 with the pres-tigious award summa cum laude.Besides heading quality control of cosmet-ics in Birken GmbH, in 2008 she took onthe direction of the Research & Develop-ment department there. In addition to thecompany’s internal galenic development,this involved galenic, preclinical and clini-cal collaboration with partners in universi-ties and medical centres.Since 2009 she has led a project with threeco-operating university partners that wassupported by a central innovation pro-gramme (ZIM) of the German Ministry ofEconomy and Technology.

A feature of Melanie Laszczyk’s work isthat it involves different fields and drawson various scientific disciplines. In 2006she published a paper on the characterisa-tion of dry extracts of triterpenes and theirpotential galenic applications. Through cellculture studies she was able to confirmclinical findings with the extracts in actinickeratosis and helped prepare the clinicaltrials of the extract. She has co-authoredseveral papers dealing with the prepara-tion of pentacyclic triterpenes of plant ori-gin, their extraction and galenic prepara-tion as well as their use preclinically andclinically. Her focus is the application oftriterpenes to the skin in the form of betulinemulsions. Preclinically this mainly in-volves anti-inflammatory, antioxidative, dif-ferentiation promoting and antiviral effectsof the triterpenes. In clinical research therange of investigations extends from cos-metic applications for dry skin to the treat-ment of skin that has been damaged, forexample by radiotherapy, wounds or dis-eases such as neurodermatitis.Melanie Laszczyk’s literature research andher own findings on the potential for triter-penoids in tumour therapy is summarisedin a review article which appeared in PlantaMedica in 2009.

GA awarded the Egon Stahl Award inbronze to Dr. Melanie Laszczykin recogni-tion of her highly valuable contributions topharmacognosy and analytical phyto-chemistry, in particular of her outstandingcontributions to preclinical cell cultureresearch, new galenic formulations andscientific steering of clinical studies.

Prof. Brigitte Kopp, GA president

Egon Stahl Award in bronze to Melanie Laszyzyk

70th Birthday of Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Dr. h.c. Adolf Nahrstedt

Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Dr. h.c. Adolf Nahrstedt,Editor in Chief of Planta Medica from1993-2004, celebrated his 70th birthday onAugust 9th this year. Professor Nahrstedtstudied Pharmacy and Food Chemistry atthe University of Freiburg, Germany andreceived his PhD degree in 1971 from thesame University. After the habilitation in1976, he was appointed at the TechnicalUniversity of Braunschweig as an Associ-ate Professor. Since 1986 he has been aFull Professor at the University of Muen-ster, Germany, and Emeritus since 2005.As Full Professor he served in various ca-pacities, including as Vice-Dean andelected Dean of the College of Chemistryand Pharmacy, as Vice-Dean of the Facultyof Natural Sciences, and as a member ofthe Founding Commission for the Instituteof Pharmacy at the University of Leipzig.Upon his retirement in 2004 ProfessorNahrstedt has been appointed as GuestProfessor at the University of Maha-sarakham in Thailand, the Sinai Universityin El Arish, Egypt and the University ofFlorida in Gainesville, USA. His researchcovers the biochemistry and physiologyof secondary metabolites, particularlycyanogenic glycosides in plants and in-sects, as well as the phytochemistry of tra-ditional herbal drugs. He is well known forhis major contributions on St. John’s wort,

its active constituents and coeffectors. Hehas published over 200 papers and chap-ters, and delivered some 200 lecturesworldwide. His honors include HonoraryMemberships of the Society for MedicinalPlant and Natural Product Research (GA)and of the European Academy of NaturalMedicine. He was recipient of the RudolfFritz Weiss Award of the German Societyof Phytotherapy, the Varro Tyler Award ofthe American Society of Pharmacognosy(ASP), and of an honorary doctorate fromthe Ovidius University of Constanta, Ro-mania. He is a member of many societiesand has served on various boards andcommissions, including the German Com-mission E, where he made significant con-tributions to the standardization and con-trol of herbal medicines.Professor Nahrstedt is an eminent memberof GA. He served for many years on theAdvisory Board where he continuouslygave valuable input to the Society. Hismost important service to GA, however,has undeniably been his editorial activityfor the official journal of GA, Planta Med-ica. Professor Nahrstedt has been associ-ated with the journal for more than 25years, first as Co-Editor (1983–1992), lateras Editor in Chief (EiC) (1993–2004), andcurrently as Senior Editor (2005–present).During Professor Nahrstedt’s tenure as EiC

the journal underwent a profound change,from an Europe-centered specialist jour-nal, to a truly international, highly regardedinterdisciplinary forum for PharmaceuticalBiologists and other scientists interested inthe multifaceted field of natural products.The steady increase of the Impact Factorfrom 0.9 (1993) to 2.28 (2002), and of TotalCites per year from less than 2000 to 4733are a testimony of this development. Nowonder that the rising profile of Planta

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Medica has attracted, and still attracts, agrowing number of manuscript submis-sions. Without Professor Nahrstedt’s per-sonal dedication to the journal, and anenormous amount of hard work and timespent, such a success story would nothave been possible.At 70 years of age Adolf Nahrstedt remainsa superior, quiet personality, and a sharp

and critical observer of the medicinal plantscene. He expresses his views and opin-ions in a carefully balanced way, occasion-ally with a touch of self-irony. For thosewho have had the privilege to know himmore personally he remains the very muchappreciated, sensitive and interested lis-tener who exudes natural human warmthand cherishes faithful and enduring friend-

ship. On behalf of GA, we thank AdolfNahrstedt for his outstanding contributionto furthering our discipline in Europe and inthe world, and we wish him all the best onthe occasion of his 70th birthday.

Prof. Veronika Butterweck andProf. Matthias Hamburger

Some Data from the Membership Data Base:New GA members

The society can announce 54 new mem-bers since June 2010. The Society wel-comes you all warmly and wishes that GAmay get a platform for many scientific andpersonal contacts. We are looking forwardto your active participation in many GAevents! All the best for you all!

Abeer, Ibrahim Nema, Egypt; AdeyoyinOmlara, Adeniji, Nigeria; Slater, Adrian,United Kingdom; Alembert, Tchindatiabou, Cameroon; Rodrigues, Alice,French Guiana; Amin, Chaanin, Switzer-land; Habib, Amira, Egypt; Alefirov, An-drey, Russia; Bhaumik, Anindita, India;Galkin, Anna, Finland; Murray, Belinda,United Kingdom; Stefanache, Camelia,

Romania; Munari, Caroline, Switzerland;Vonthron, Catherine, France; Chioma,Anosike, Nigeria; Lubrano, Christian,France; Antal, Diana Simona, Romania;Stien, Didier, French Guiana; TavakoliDinani, Elham, Iran; Giacomeli, Emanuela,Italy; Houel, Emeline, French Guiana;Ariburnu, Etil, Turkey; Conforti, Filomena,Italy; Agbor, Gabriel, Cameroon; Wada,Gloria, United States of America; Da Silva,Gustavo, Portugal; Abd-Alla, Howaida,Egypt; Fajemiroye, James, Brazil; Wang,Jian Wen, China; Vetschera, Karin, Aus-tria; Abou El-Kassem, Lamia Taha, Egypt;Lee, Marcia, United States of America;Mayank, Thakur, India; Abdelmohsen,Mona, Egypt; Mu, Naeem, India; Sadati,

Nargess, Iran; Okoye, Nkeoma N., Nigeria;Yalcin, Nuray, Turkey;Olubukola, Adenubi,Nigeria; Permeh, Parisa, Iran; Nnamani,Petra Obioma, Nigeria; Raharivelomana-na, Phila, French Polynesia; Arrey Tar-kang, Protus Cameroon; Hendawy, Saber,Egypt; Chaturvedula, Sai Prakash, UnitedStates of America; Ezea, Samson, Nigeria;Li, Shaoping, China; Kouam Fogue,Simeon, Cameroon; Sasmakov, Sobird-jan, Uzbekistan; Ukwueze, Stanley Ejike,Nigeria; Tahira, Sultana, Pakistan; Spon-sel, Valerie, United States of America;Vikas, Sharma, India; Zinaw Dilnesaw,Ayele, Ethopia.

Minutes of the GA Members’ meeting 2010 in Berlin,Germany

The Members Meeting took place duringthe annual congress in Berlin on 31. Au-gust 2010, 6.30 to 7.55 p.m. 80 GA mem-bers attended the meeting.

1. Approval of the AgendaPresident Prof. B. Kopp welcomed allparticipants. The agenda, published inthe GA Newsletter 1-2010, was unani-mously approved.

2. Approval of the Minutes of the Mem-bers MeetingThe minutes of the previous MembersMeeting on 18. Aug. 2009 in Geneva,published in the GA Newsletter 2-2009,were unanimously approved.

3. Annual reports3.1 Report of the President Prof. B.

Kopp• Prof. Dr. Hilke Wintherhoff

passed away on 9 May 2010,ESA gold winner Prof. Dr. DetlevGröger on 27 June 2010. Prof.Kopp asked the participants tostand up for one minute of silent

commemoration for Profs. Grö-ger and Winterhoff.

• Prof. Kopp has sent a condo-lence letter to Prof. Winterhoff’srelatives. An obituary by Prof.Butterweck has been publishedin the recent GA Newsletter.

• An obituary for Prof. Gröger hasbeen written by Prof. Leistnerwhich will be published in PlantaMedica and in the next GANewsletter.

• Prof. Kopp sent personal con-gratulations to the followingHonorary Members on the occa-sion of their birthdays: Prof.Nahrstedt (70), Prof. Hänsel (90),Prof. Schilcher (80). A laudationfor Prof. Nahrstedt has beenwritten by Prof. Butterweck andProf. Hamburger which will bepublished in Planta Medica.

• She organised the new design ofthe starting page of the GAhomepage together with the sec-retary and webmaster.

• She participated as representa-

tive of GA in the EDQM Work-shop in Vienna, Austria (co-or-ganised by GA), in Sept. 2009, inthe Shanghai Meeting in October2009 and gave a lecture, in thePharmSciFair Meeting in April2010 in Vienna and in the Inter-national Symposium “Drug dis-covery from Nature” in April 2010in Innsbruck, Austria.

• She reported that Dr. B. Roetherwas nominated as GA’s officialcontact person to EMA. GA reg-ularly comments on the drafts ofthe HMPC monographs.

• She chaired the jury of ESAbronze and WSA and informedand invited the winners, Dr. M.Laszczyk (ESA bronze) and Prof.J. Gertsch (WSA).

• All Honorary Members havebeen invited to the annual con-gress in Berlin. Profs. Franz,Scheffer, Schilcher, Sticher andWichtl came to Berlin.

• The new Dr. Willmar SchwabeResearch Scholarship for Young

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Scientists will be announced onthe GA homepage soon.

3.2 Reports of the Vice-Presidents3.2.1 Report of Vice-President Prof.

W. Blaschek• He attended the “7. Berliner

Kongress Phytotherapie 2009” inSept. 2009 where he gave a wel-come address from GA, themeeting “Verbände-übergreifen-de Gespräche” in Frankfurt, Ger-many, in Jan. 2009, the DPhG-congress in Jena, Germany, inSept. 2009, the EUFEPS/PharmSciFair meeting in Würz-burg, Germany, in Jan. 2010 andthe congress “Phytopharm2010” in St. Petersburg, Russia,in July 2010. The latter was co-organised by GA; Prof. Blaschekgave a welcome address fromGA and a plenary lecture.

• He was involved in the develop-ment of the questionnaire onPlanta Medica which was sent toall GA members.

• He commented the HMPC draftmonograph on Cimicifuga race-mosa.

• He will prepare GA’s comment tothe draft of the “Stoffliste desBundes und der Länder” fromBfArM.

• He will participate in the Sympo-sium “Phytopharmaka – Erfüll-bare Erwartungen” in Münster,Germany, on 7 October 2010which is dedicated to Prof. H.Winterhoff.

3.2.2 Report of Vice-President Prof.M. Hamburger

• He was also involved in the de-velopment of the questionnaireon Planta Medica.

• He is the chairperson of the newworking group on the future ori-entation of GA.

• He attended the 9th Annual Ox-ford International Conference onthe Science of Botanicals in April2010 in Mississippi, USA, wherehe gave a lecture.

• He was a member of the jury forthe WSA.

• He wrote a laudation on the oc-casion of Prof. Nahrstedt’s 70th

birthday which will be publishedin Planta Medica and in the GANewsletter.

3.3 Report of the Secretary Dr. B.BenedekDr. Benedek presented the mem-bers’ statistics:• GA currently has 1418 active

members from 82 countriescompared to 1371 in 2009. Dur-ing the congress in Berlin therewere about 30 new applications.

• The number of members payingregular fees is 844, the numberof members paying reduced fees520.

• GA currently has 12 HonoraryMembers including the newHonorary Member Prof. A. Vlie-tinck.

• At the moment there are 36 cor-porate members with 3 newmembers since Jan. 2010: En-gelhard Arzneimittel, Vital Solu-tions and Vivacell Biotechnology,all from Germany, and one can-cellation (Dreluso, Germany).

• 140 new members have appliedsince 1 Sept. 2009.

3.4 Report of the Treasurer Dr. B.Roether and the Auditors Prof. E.Stahl-Biskup and Prof. H. Schil-cherDr. Roether presented the currentfinancial situation of GA:• The credits of GA currently

amount to 133,994 EUR (fundsvalue: 56,530 EUR, cash: 77,464EUR).

• The credits of the Egon-Stahl-Fund currently amount to 52,468EUR (funds value: 50,000 EUR,cash: 2,468 EUR).

• The total revenues in 2010 were81,564 EUR (status 07/2010), thetotal expenses 46,014 EUR.Thus, the balance for 2010 (totalrevenues minus total expenses)is 35,550 EUR (07/2010).

• In 2010 there were 34 subscrip-tions to PM online with accessback to 1998 and 42 subscrip-tions with access back to 1953.

Prof. Schilcher presented the re-port of the auditors:• The audit of the Treasurer’s Re-

port was very positive withoutany comments or complaints.

• He thanks the Treasurer Dr.Roether and his assistant Ms.Lahse for their work.

3.5 Discharge of the Executive Coun-cilThe Auditor Prof. Schilcher askedfor the discharge of the Treasurerand the whole ExC which was ac-cepted unanimously by the wholeassembly.

4. Modification of the GA BylawsThe GA bylaws have to be modified dueto contradictoriness. The sentence “Theelection is directly valid” in §9/5 shall bedeleted:“The members of the Executive Counciland the Advisory Board are eachelected by the Members’ Meeting for aperiod of two complete calendar years.The election is directly valid. Re-elec-tion is permissible. The period of officestarts with the first day of the calendaryear following the election.”The modification of the bylaws wasunanimously approved by the assem-bly.

5. Report of the Editor-in-Chief ofPlanta Medica Prof. L. Pieters• The rejection rate (published versus

submitted manuscripts) in 2009 was78%.

• With respect to the number of sub-mitted manuscripts the leading coun-try is China.

• The impact factor in 2009 was 2.037compared to 1.960 in the year before.The impact factor of Planta Medica isslightly lower than that of Journal ofEthnopharmacology (2.322) and Phy-tomedicine (2.174), but higher thanthat of Phytotherapy Research(1.746) and Phytochemical Analysis(1.744).

• Three special issues will be publishedin 2010: “Cancer Therapy with Natu-ral Products”, the GA abstract vol-ume and a special issue on TCM.

• Due to a printing delay Thiemeagreed to print 200 additional pageswithout additional charges.

• Regarding the new profile of PM arti-cles in the following sections will bepublished: “Biological and Pharma-cological Activity”, “Pharmacokineticand Clinical Studies”, “Natural Prod-uct Chemistry and Analytical Studies.Biochemistry”. The section “Molecu-lar Biology and Biotechnology” willnot be included in the editorial scopeanymore.

• In 2011 15 regular issues, two specialissues and one GA abstract volumewill be published.

• Thieme will improve the electronicaccess. Regarding institutional sub-scriptions no print-only subscriptionswill be availabe any more.

6. Reports of the Permanent Commit-tees6.1 Report of the PC “Biological and

Pharmacological Activity of Nat-ural Products” by Prof V. Butter-weck• This year’s workshop about “Use

of Polyphenols Against Cardio-vascular Diseases” was very wellattended and the discussion wasgood.

• In 2011 the workshop will focuson natural products for meta-bolic diseases.

6.2 Report of the PC “Breeding andCultivation of Medicinal Plants”by Prof J. Nowak• Prof. J. Nowak from Vienna, Aus-

tria, will be the successor of Prof.C. Franz for this PC.

• This year’s workshop called“Biotechnology in Starting Mate-rial Production” was successful.The chairperson was Prof.Nowak, the co-chair Prof. O.Kayser, Netherlands.

• In 2011 there will be a joint work-shop with the PC “Manufacturingand Quality Control of HMPs”dealing with contaminants instarting materials (duration: 3hours, 5 to 6 speakers).

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The 2010 GA meeting was organized byHerbert Kolodziej and Matthias F. Melzigand their co-workers in Berlin, hosted bythe Freie Universität Berlin, a Center of In-

ternational Cooperation. The Presidentssincerely appreciated the participation ofapproximately 900 scientists from morethan 70 countries. The scientific pro-

gramme included 70 oral presentations in12 sessions and more than 700 posters oncurrent research topics. Dynamic discus-sions between the sessions and informally

6.2 Report of the PC “Manufacturingand Quality Control of HMPs” byDr. C. Erdelmeier• The title of this year’s workshop

was “Use of Hyphenated Tech-niques in the Quality Control ofHMPs”. Two speakers (Prof. J.Jaroszewski, Dr. M. Wierer) wereexcused and were replaced byProf. M. Hamburger and Ms. M.Bald (EDQM, Strasbourg, Fran-ce). The workshop was success-ful.

6.4 Report of the PC “Regulatory Af-fairs of HMPs” by Prof. A. Vlie-tinck• This year’s workshop about “The

importance of a risk-benefitanalysis for the marketing au-thorization” was successful.

• In 2011 the workshop will focuson GCP and clinical trials withherbal drugs and food supple-ments.

6.5 Report of the Young Research-ers Workshop by Prof. T. Efferth• This year there were two parallel

sessions (“Cellular and Molecu-lar Mechanisms of Action of Nat-ural Products and MedicinalPlants” and “Lead Finding fromNature – Pitfalls and Challengesof Classical, Comput. and Hy-phenated Approaches”). Therewere about 240 applications, but

in the end only 140 participantsattended the workshop. In addi-tion, three speakers in one ses-sion did not come. The work-shop was successful with inter-esting discusssions.

• In 2011 the workshop will be car-ried out in two parallel sessionsagain.

7. Future Congresses, Symposia andWorkshops7.1 Annual GA Congresses

• 2011: Antalya, Turkey, 4–9 Sept.• 2012: New York, USA, 28 July–

1 Aug. (Joint Meeting of ASP,AFERP, GA, PSE and SIF)

• 2013: Münster, Germany, 1–6Sept. (organisers: Profs. A. Hen-sel, Th. Schmidt)

• 2014: Minho-Braga, Portugal, 31Aug.–5 Sept. (organiser: Prof. A.Diaz, Joint Meeting with AFERP)

• 2015: not yet fixed, possiblyUppsala, Sweden

• 2016: Joint Meeting

7.2 Future Congresses and Work-shops• “11th Congress of the Interna-

tional Society for Ethnopharma-cology” (ISE 2010), 20–25 Sept.2010, Castilla la Mancha, Spain;co-organised by GA

• “Phytopharmaka – erfüllbare Er-wartungen” (Honorary Sympo-

sium for Prof. Winterhoff), 7 Oct.2010, Münster, Germany

• “Shanghai International Confer-ence on Traditional ChineseMedicine and Natural Medicines– New Idea, New Technique,New Method” (S-TCM 2010);15–17 Oct. 2010, Hangzhou,Zhejiang Province, China, co-organised by GA

• “New Biotrends in green chem-istry - exploring the potential ofsynthetic biology for naturalproduct discovery and produc-tion”, 1–2 Dec. 2010, Dortmund,Germany; co-organised by GA

• “PharmSciFair 2011”, 13–17June 2011, Prague, Czech Re-public; co-organised by GA

• “International Symposium forThin-Layer Chromatography”, 6–8 July 2011, Basel, Switzerland

• “6. Fachtagung Arznei- und Ge-würzpflanzen“, 19–22 Sept. 2011,Berlin, Germany

8. MiscellaneousThe congress organiser Prof. H. Basergave a presentation of the GA annualmeeting 2011 in Antalya. The congresswill be an official activity within theframework of the “International Year ofChemistry 2011”.

GA president Prof. B. KoppGA secretary Dr. B. Benedek

Meeting Reports

A great conference in a great city with great science:the annual conference of 2010 in Berlin

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during the coffee breaks mediated manynew contacts and co-operations betweenacademic institutions and industrial part-ners.

The topics of the conference showed thebroad spectrum of modern natural productresearch, ranging from molecular system-atics or “genomic mining” for the “discov-ery” of novel lead compounds from naturalsources to sophisticated analytical meth-ods for the characterization of herbal prod-ucts. A high percentage of short lecturesand poster contributions were concernedwith traditional herbal medicines, theirtherapeutic utilization, quality manage-ment and pharmacological principles toprove efficacy and safety.In the opening lecture „Sustainable drugsand global health care” G. Cordell,Chicago, emphasized awareness of theneed to maintain and monitor Earth’s re-sources. For most of the world’s popula-tion, plants represent the foundation of pri-mary health care for the foreseeable future.In his presentation, several approaches toenhancing and sustaining the availability ofdrugs were demonstrated.The session “Opportunities and challengesin the exploitation of biodiversity” was de-voted to the year of biodiversity 2010.Equitable sharing of the benefits of bio-diversity is one of the main objectives ofthe Convention on Biological Diversity. Yetlack of clarity about some of the basic con-cepts and approaches in access andbenefit sharing have meant limited practi-cal implementation.More than 300 participants attended thesix workshops dealing with relevant topicson regulatory affairs of herbal medicinalproducts, the use of polyphenols in cardio-vascular diseases, breeding and cultiva-tion of medicinal plants, application of hy-phenated analytical methods and qualitycontrol of herbal remedies.Professor Dr. Arnold Vlietinck, Antwerp(Belgium), was awarded by the Presidentof GA, Prof. Dr. Brigitte Kopp, Vienna (Aus-

tria), with the honorary membership of theSociety in appreciation of his untiring com-mitment to serving on the board of the GAand as chairperson of the permanent com-mittee on Regulatory Affairs of Herbal Me-dicinal Products for more than 25 years.Dr. Melanie Laszczyk, Freiburg (Germany)received the Egon Stahl-Award in Bronzefor her excellent PhD thesis on triterpenesfrom the bark of birch and their pharmaco-logical activities. Prof. Dr. Jürg Gertsch,University of Bern (Switzerland), wasawarded with the “Dr. Willmar Schwabe-Preis”. His talk “Playing with bioactive nat-ural products: Looking for molecular dei exmachina” reported on natural products in-teracting with the signal transduction path-way of the endocannabinoid system.In the closing ceremony, seven young sci-entists were honored with travel grants foroutstanding contributions and five posterawards were granted for excellence in de-sign and science.

Prof. Dr. Matthias F. Melzig

6th Young Researcher Workshop of GA, Berlin

The 6th Young Researchers Workshop(YRW) of the Society for Medicinal Plantand Natural Product Research took placeat the conference site of the 58th Interna-tional Congress of the society in Berlin,29th August 2010.Some 200 young researchers announcedtheir interest and attended the two parallelsessions of the workshops.Session I entitled “Cellular and MolecularMechanisms of Action of Natural Productsand Medicinal Plants” was headed by Prof.Thomas Efferth with the help of Prof.Veronika Butterweck.Session II dealing with “Lead Finding fromNature – Pitfalls and Challenges of Classi-cal, Computational and Hyphenated Ap-proaches” was headed by Prof. Judith M.Rollinger in cooperation with Prof. Anna-Rita Bilia and Prof. Jean-Luc Wolfender.

YRW Awarding ceremony: (from left to right) Prof. J.M. Rollinger (YRW committee),awarded young scientists: S. Zimmermann, B. Waltenberger, K. Vougogiannopoulou,J. Singhuber, E. Rozema, I Shaukat; Prof. B. Kopp, GA president.

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After giving an impulse to the young audi-torium by initial lectures of Prof. OliverWerz in session I and Prof. Jürg Gertsch insession II, the floor was open for presenta-tions and lively discussions of young re-searchers. In a round table discussion atthe end of each session, there was time todiscuss scientific problems and currentchallenges of young scientists in their daily

work and academic career. From the num-ber of highly qualified oral presentationsprovided at the YRW, six candidates wereawarded for their outstanding contribution(see Foto) thanks to a donation given bythe company Bionorica.The enthusiastic feedback of this work-shop together with the continuously grow-ing number of participants registered over

the last years encourages the current YRWcommittee (T. Efferth, D. Tasdemir, A. Hen-sel, J.M. Rollinger, A.R. Bilia, J.-L. Wol-fender) to proceed with this event and,thus, to provide a lively platform for youngscientists from all over the world dealingwith natural product research.

Ao. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Judith M. Rollinger

7th Tannin Conference, Berlin 2010:presymposium for the annual GA conference

The 7th Tannin Conference was organizedas presymposium of the 58th Int. Congressand Annual Meeting of the Society for Me-dicinal Plant and Natural Product Researchin Berlin, Germany, hosted by the FreieUniversität Berlin.Tannins have been the subject of extensiveresearch for many decades. Significant ad-vances in the elucidation of their constitu-tions and conformations, as well as fromthe broad recognition of their fascinatingbiological, pharmacological and physio-logical activities have led to increasing at-tention to these metabolites. In the contin-uation of a successful series of confer-ences in the United States, the TanninConference 2010 was unique in that it wasthe first outside the North American conti-nent with approximately 350 participants -indeed, a privilege! The objective of all theTannin Conferences has been and still is tobring together people with a common in-terest in plant polyphenols and to promoteinterdisciplinary interactions that will leadto a better understanding of these impor-tant metabolites. A special objective of the7th Tannin Conference was to encourageparticipation by scientists from all over theworld in future meetings and to promotefurther collaboration between chemists, bi-ologists, and human health related disci-plines and to focus on expanded possibil-ities of polyphenols for their application inhuman health, nutrition and the food in-dustry.Since all tannin actions very probably de-rive from some of their chemical featuresand molecular recognition is a key step inmany underlying principles, conforma-tional analysis and studies on the interac-tion with biological macromolecules attractthe interests of scientists from many disci-plines. Some respective contributions in-cluded the stereochemical structure deter-mination of polyphenol complexes withcaffeine (T. Ishizu), a molecular interpreta-tion of astringency (I. Pianet) and a reviewon tannin conformation in solution (C. Pon-cet-Legrand). Other notable presentationsin the field of biological activities describedthe antioxidant activity of metabolites of el-lagitannins (H. Ito), wound-healing proper-ties (C. Schmidt, C. Agyare), antiadhesivecapabilities (A. Hensel), and discussed thebioavailability of hawthorn procyanidins(S. Zumdick). Besides, contributions fo-

cused on interesting analytical aspects (I.Mueller-Harvey, A. Hagerman) and the syn-thesis of tannins in their free phenolicforms crucial for activity studies.The Polyphenol Community of Scientistsproudly honoured Prof. Daneel Ferreira atthe meeting through the presentation ofthe 2010 Tannin Conference Award, spon-sored by the Freie Universität Berlin. Thisappreciation was in recognition of his life-long seminal contributions and persistentadvocacy to the Tannin Conference.

The 7th Tannin Conference was organizedas presymposium of the 58th Int. Congressand Annual Meeting of the Society for Me-dicinal Plant and Natural Product Researchin Berlin, Germany, hosted by the FreieUniversität Berlin.Tannins have been the subject of extensiveresearch for many decades. Significant ad-vances in the elucidation of their constitu-tions and conformations, as well as from

the broad recognition of their fascinatingbiological, pharmacological and physio-logical activities have led to increasing at-tention to these metabolites. In the contin-uation of a successful series of confer-ences in the United States, the TanninConference 2010 was unique in that it wasthe first outside the North American conti-nent with approximately 350 participants –indeed, a privilege! The objective of all theTannin Conferences has been and still is tobring together people with a common in-terest in plant polyphenols and to promoteinterdisciplinary interactions that will leadto a better understanding of these impor-tant metabolites. A special objective of the7th Tannin Conference was to encourageparticipation by scientists from all over theworld in future meetings and to promote

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further collaboration between chemists, bi-ologists, and human health related disci-plines and to focus on expanded possibil-ities of polyphenols for their application inhuman health, nutrition and the food in-dustry.

The Polyphenol Community of Scientistsproudly honoured Prof. Daneel Ferreira atthe meeting through the presentation ofthe 2010 Tannin Conference Award, spon-sored by the Freie Universität Berlin. Thisappreciation was in recognition of his life-

long seminal contributions and persistentadvocacy to the Tannin Conference.

Prof. Herbert Kolodziej

The Medicinal Plant Garden of the Gentiana Foundation, Leysin, Switzerland –Supported by GA

Leysin is a tourist resort located in theWestern part of the Swiss Alps. In winter, itis famous for skiing and snowboard com-petitions. In summer, it has not many at-tractions to offer. Thus, the idea came tocreate an alpine botanical garden in orderto attract more tourists during the summerperiod. Thus, the undersigned, at that timeProfessor of pharmacognosy at the Uni-versity of Lausanne, was approached bylocal people and authorities to assist themto accomplish this goal. But he suggestedto establish a medicinal plant garden andnot just another alpine botanical garden.A foundation was formed and named“Gentiana Foundation for the knowledgeof medicinal plants”. The aims are to pro-vide information on medicinal plants, onhow to use them and on cautions to betaken, in the form of public lectures for thegeneral audience and courses of continu-ous education for pharmacists and med-ical doctors. The didactic tool of the Foun-dation is the Garden. The Municipality ofLeysin provided about 30,000 square me-ters of land and a small chalet to the Foun-

dation. The Garden is open to public since2004. It contains about 3,000 plants whichare grouped in various sectors accordingto their therapeutic indications, e.g. plantsfor the digestion, plants for the liver, plantsagainst pain, plants for the prostate, plantsfor the women, plants for external use,etc… Some sectors are also devoted topoisonous plants and to those whichshould not be confused in a very didacticpresentation. It is noteworthy to mention,that the Garden possesses also a nice col-lection of Gentian species from all over theworld (around 50 different gentians).A botanical garden is an alive museum. Avisitor wishes to see a specific plant but atthe time of his visit, this plant is not flower-ing. Thus, the Foundation is selling guidesfor each sector with useful information andcolor pictures of the plants. Some of thesesector guides could be printed thanks to asponsoring of the GA which is acknow-ledged here.

Prof. Kurt Hostettmann,President of the Gentiana Foundation

Next Annual GA Meeting

59th International Congress and Annual Meeting of theSociety for Medicinal Plant and Natural Product Research

Welcome to Antalya!

It is my great pleasure and honour to an-nounce the 59th International Congressand Annual Meeting of the Society for Me-dicinal Plant and Natural Product Researchto be held between 4–9 September 2011 inAntalya, Turkey. This congress series hasbeen organized annually in Europe since1953 in order to stimulate cooperationamong scientists of the world for the ad-vancement of research and development

into the science of phytomedicine, medic-inal and aromatic plants and their prod-ucts. The importance of the 59th GA Con-gress is that it is organized for the first timein Turkey where one of the first herbals,“De Materia Medica” was written in the 1stcentury AD by an Anatolian doctor Peda-nius Dioscorides of Anavarza who hadserved in the Roman Army as a physician.Anavarza, the birthplace of Dioscorides is

not far from Antalya. It is in Kozan – Adana,southern Turkey.

The congress is expected to attract globalattention in the International Year of Chem-istry of the United Nations proceeded bythe 42nd International Symposium of Es-sential Oils (ISEO 2011) in the followingweek in the same venue. This will givemost of the participants a feast of natural

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products chemistry for two weeks in earlySeptember, 2011 at an excellent venuewhere business and leisure can be com-bined for pleasure and satisfaction.

Antalya is an attractive spot blending his-tory and culture and a favorite holiday re-sort with numerous five-star hotels andholiday villages. It is easily reachable bydirect flights from many European metro-

pols. September is a fine time for Antalyawith a favourable and pleasant climate.Maritim Pine Beach Resort Hotel hostingthe congress offers excellent conferencefacilities.

We shall be glad to welcome pharmacog-nosists, phytochemists, phytotherapists,aromatherapists, pharmacists, biologists,microbiologists, biotechnologists, che-

mists, physicians, regulatory agents, in-dustrialists, etc. dealing with various as-pects of medicinal plant and natural prod-uct science in September, 2011 in Antalyato enjoy a rich, varied and attractive scien-tific and cultural programme.

Prof. K. Hüsnü Can Başer,President of the Organizing Committee

Southern Cross UniversityCentre for Phytochemistry and PharmacologyPO Box 157, Lismore NSW 2480

Email: [email protected]

Homepage: http://www.scu.edu.au/research/cpp/index.php

Head of institution: Professor Michael Heinrich (from 2011 onwards)

Working area The Centre for Phytochemistry and Pharmacology undertakes fundamental and applied research to produce(max. 3 sentences): value added products based on bioactive natural extracts. The Centre’s main areas of expertise are quality

control and assurance of essential oils and herbal raw materials, extracts and medicines, extraction of plantmaterials, chemical profiling, isolation and purification of compounds, structural elucidation, bioactivity-guidedfractionation and pharmacological in vitro screening. The Centre is part of Southern Cross Plant Science whichalso has considerable expertise in plant genomics and has been involved in genomic projects on wheat, sugar-cane, tea tree and other useful plants.

3 publications, Wohlmuth H, Deseo M, Brushett D, Thompson D, MacFarlane G, Stevenson L, Leach D.representing Diarylheptanoid from Pleuranthodium racemigerum with in vitro prostaglandin E2 inhibitory and cytotoxic activity.the institution: Journal of Natural Products 2010;73:743–746.

Wohlmuth H, Penman KG, Pearson T, Lehmann RP. Pharmacognostic studies of passionflower (Passifloraincarnata L.): chemotypes and quality control. Biological & Pharmaceutical Bulletin 2010;33:1015–1018.

New Books

Drugs of Natural Origin:A Treatise of Pharmacognosy

By Prof. em Gunnar Samuelson and Prof.Lars Bohlin, Division of Pharmacognosy,Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Upp-sala University, Sweden.

Drugs of Natural Origin, meanwhile in the6th revised edition is a unique multidiscipli-nary book suitable for undergraduate andgraduate students and teachers in the area

of natural product re-search, but also as acomplementary bookfor disciplines like me-dicinal chemistry, bio-chemistry and phar-macology. The bookcan also serve societyas a scientific sourcefor the understandingof a sustainable use ofnatural products in the

development of new drugs, scientificallybased herbal remedies, and environmen-tally adapted biomolecules.

776 pages, illustrated in colour. ISBN 978-91-976510-5-9. Swedish Academy ofPharmaceutical Sciences. Order underwww.swepharm.se

GA worldwideand their Institutes of Pharmacognosy:International, Interesting and Cooperative

We introduce and present major research groups working in the field ofmedicinal plants and natural products with their special characteristics.In this Newsletter: Australia

GA has about 10 regular members from “down under”. 4 working grouphave prepared a short presentation of the group and the activities.

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Matthias A, Banbury L, Bone KM, Leach DN, Lehmann RP. Echinacea alkylamides modulate induced immuneresponses in T cells. Fitoterapia 2008,79:53–58.

Coworkers: PhD: 4, Postdocs: 3, Technical staff and other: 14

The “speciality” The Centre has very strong commercial links and is the prime address in Australia for the quality control andor the unique authentication of herbal medical products. Southern Cross University’s newly formed Southern Cross Plantselling proposition Science (60+ staff) applies genomic, metabolomic and other approaches to the provision of innovative, science-of institution: based solutions to the exploration and commercialisation of economically important food and medicinal plants

and natural products. It also has strong links with health science researchers at SCU, which includes a clinicaltrials unit specialising in herbal medicines and food supplements.

Running projects with Extensive industry linkages through collaborate grants, contract research and fee-for-service analytical work.industrial partners? Plant compounds for wound healing, bioactives from waste-streams, plant-based insecticides, anti-inflammatory

agents from native Australian plants.

Photograph

Griffith University, School of Pharmacy & Griffith Health Institute,Gold Coast, 4222, QLD

Griffith University:Dr. Evelin Tiralongo

Email: [email protected]

Homepage: http://www.griffith.edu.au/health/school pharmacy/staff/dr-evelin-tiralongo

Head of institution: Prof Michael Rathbone (Pharmacy)Prof. Lyn Griffiths (GHI)

Working areas 1. Pharmacological evaluation and structural elucidation of constituents from Australian mushrooms andmedicinal plants.

2. Pharmacological evaluation of herbal medicines.3. Efficacy and safety of complementary medicines.4. Integration of complementary medicine into clinical practice.

3 publications, Beattie, KD, Rouf, R, Gander, L, May, TW, Ratkowsky, D, Donner, CD, Gill G, Grice, ID, Tiralongo, E.representing Antibacterial metabolites from Australian macrofungi from the genus Cortinarius.the institution: Phytochemistry. 2010, 71:948–955.

Bensch K, Tiralongo J, Matthias A, Bone KM, Lehmann R, Tiralongo, E.Investigations into the anti-adhesive activity of herbal extracts against Campylobacter jejuni,Phytotherapy Research. 2010, in press.

Beattie, KD, Ulrich, R. Grice ID, Uddin, SJ, Blake, TB, Wood, KA, Steele, J., Iu, F May, TW, Tiralongo, E.Ethanolic and aqueous extracts derived from Australian fungi inhibit cancer cell growth in vitro.Mycologia, 2010, in press

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Coworkers: PhD 2 and 1 Postdocs

The “speciality” or the Pharmacological evaluation and structural elucidation of constituents from Australian mushroomsunique sellingproposition of institution:

Running projects with Investigations into the anti-adhesion activity of herbal medicines against Helicobacter pylori andindustrial partners? Campylobacter jejuni.

Randomised, double blind, placebo-controlled trial of Echinacea supplementation in air-travellers

Integria Healthcare: [email protected]. Reg. Lehman

Homepage: www.integria.com

Head of institution: A/Prof Dr Reg Lehmann – General Manager of Research and Development

Working area Integria Healthcare researches across the entire range of medicinal plant and complementary health as(max. 3 sentences): exemplified by its publications in Echinacea research. As an industry partner Integria has led research into

agronomy of herbs, phytochemical characterization, predictive bioavailability, pharmacology, pharmacokineticsand Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials. These projects have linked together many experts in their fields including inter-nationally who would normally not have been involved in herbal medicine research.

2 publications, KG Penman, CW Halstead, A Matthias, JJ De Voss, JMU Stuthe, KM Bone, RP Lehmann.representing Bilberry adulteration using the food dye amaranth,the institution: Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 2006; 54: 7378–7382

J Sarris, DJ Kavanagh, G Byrne, KM Bone, J Adams, G Deed. The Kava Anxiety Depression Spectrum Study(KADSS): a randomized, placebo-controlled crossover trial using an aqueous extract of Piper methysticum,Psychopharmacology 2009; 205(3): 399–407

Coworkers: Prof. Kerry Bone – widely published herbalist with leading textbooks with other leading authors.

The “speciality” Integria Healthcare is a leading company in the area of complementary healthcare in Australia and New Zealandor the unique selling representing several of the leading brands such as Thursday Plantation, MediHerb, Nutrimedicine andproposition Thompsons. Integria has a mission statement of developing clinically proven efficacious formulas and as suchof institution: has developed a range of academic collaborators to achieve this goal. These collaborators represent leaders in

the fields of Phytochemistry, pharmacology and clinical trials. Integria acts to link together Australian researcherswith expertise across a wide range of disciplines to research natural products used for therapeutic outcomes.This enables Integria to achieve its goal of identifying the therapeutic components of its formulas and provingtheir efficacy in clinical situations.

Running projects with Collaborative projects are currently underway with the following Australian research groups:industrial partners? Dr G Currie – Charles Sturt University

Prof JJ DeVoss and Dr E Gillam – University of QueenslandProf T Riley – University of Western AustraliaDr J Sarris and Prof C Stough – University of Melbourne/Swinburne UniversityDr E Tiralongo and Prof L Griffiths – Griffith UniversityProf K Watson and Dr L Agnew – University of New EnglandDr H Wohlmuth – Southern Cross University

University of Western AustraliaSchool of Biomedical, Biomolecular and Chemical Sciences

Assoc. ProfConnie Locher

[email protected].

Dr Locher’s natural product and medicinal chemistry group focuses on the isolation and identification of bioactive compounds from avariety of natural sources, in particular from traditional Australian and Asian medicinal plants. Recent projects include the phytochemicalinvestigation of Conkerberry (Carissa lanceolata) and Snake Vine (Tinospora smilacina), Kiwi fruits (Actinidia ssp.) and Turmeric (Curcumalonga).

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Currently we are investigating a large range of polyphenol-rich Eucalyptus exudates, known as kinos, withthe aim to correlate chemical and antimicrobial activity data with traditional Aboriginal medicinal use.Since the mid-18th century in Europe and, undoubtedly for thousands of years before this by manydifferent indigenous peoples, these red coloured exudates have been used internally and externally mainlyfor their astringent properties. In some instances, however, they were apparently employed due to aspecific antimicrobial activity above and beyond that purely related to their tannin content. These kinos arethe particular focus of our investigations. Those keen to learn more about this fascinating though in recentyears somewhat forgotten class of plant exudates might find our article in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology (2010, 128: 259–267) ofinterest.Another area of interest to our group are the potential anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic properties of some Euphorbia species,particularly those endemic to (Western) Australia.

Recent thesis (2010) on Medicinal Plant Research(Notices of Ph.D- and diploma thesis to the editor are welcome any time!)

Ph.D. thesis (2010) Natural compoundswith antiadhesive activities against Heli-cobacter pylori By: Michael Niehues;Promotor: Prof. Dr. Andreas Hensel, Insti-tute of Pharmaceutical Biology andPhytochemistry, University of Münster,Germany.

Ph.D. thesis (2010) From ethnopharmacol-ogy to phytochemistry and in vitro activity:wound healing compounds from Phyllan-thus muellerianus (Kuntze) Exell. By: Chris-tian Agyare, Ghana; Promotor: Prof. Dr.Andreas Hensel, Institute of Pharmaceuti-cal Biology and Phytochemistry, Universityof Münster, Germany.

Ph.D. thesis (2010) Die Auffindung neuerBindepartner pflanzlicher G-Proteine durchgenetische, zellbiologische und bio-chemische Methoden (Identification ofnew proteins interacting with the plantG-protein by genetic, cell biological andbiochemical methods) By: Carolin Wolf,Promotor: Prof. Dr. Werner Roos. Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg Fakul-tät Biowissenschaften, Institut für Phar-mazie, Abt. Molekulare Zellbiologie, Halle,Germany.

Ph.D. thesis (2010) The Orca-ome as a keyto understanding alkaloid biosynthesis inCatharanthus roseus. By G. Hasnain. Pro-motors: Prof. J. Memelink and Prof. R. Ver-poorte, Institute of Biology Leiden, LeidenUniversity, The Netherlands.

Ph.D thesis (2010) Vitual and real screen-ing of natural products to find effectivemodulators of protein tyrosine phosphatisePTP1B. By: Renate Baumgartner; Promo-tor: Prof. V.M. Dirsch, University of Vienna,Austria.

Ph.D. thesis (2010) Optimization of a fluo-rimetric assay for the search for histonedeacetylase modulators from plant originand its application in bioactivity-guidedisolation. By: Dipl.-Ing. Stanimira MateevaKrasteva; Promotor: Ao. Univ.-Prof. Lise-lotte Krenn, Dept. of Pharmakognosie,University of Vienna, Austria.

Ph.D. thesis (November 2010) Mecha-nisms of action underlying ikarugamycin-mediated growth inhibition and apoptosisinduction in cancer cells. By: Mag. Ruxan-dra Popescu; Promoter: Prof. B. Kopp, De-partment of Pharmacognosy, University ofVienna, Austria.

Diploma thesis (2010) Beiträge zur phyto-chemischen Analyse der mongolischenHeilpflanze Myricaria longifolia EHRENB.By: Bettina Mraz; Promotor: Ao. Univ.-Prof.Dr. S. Glasl-Tazreiter, Department of Phar-macognosy, University of Vienna, Austria.

Diploma thesis (2010) Beeinflussung derAktivität der Myeloperoxidase durchFlavonoide in Gegenwart von Thiocyanat.By Sandra Meier; Promotor Prof. JürgenArnhold and Prof. Karen Nieber, UniversitätLeipzig, Institut für Pharmazie, Germany.

Diploma thesis (2010) Untersuchungen zurKooperativität von Inhaltsstoffen des Phy-topharmakons STW 5 auf den Tonus unddie Acetylcholin-induzierte Kontraktion anColonpräparaten der Ratte. By FranziskaHerr; Promotor Prof. Dr. Karen Nieber, Uni-versität Leipzig, Institut für Pharmazie,Germany.

Diploma thesis (2010) Anxiolytic activity ofthe flavonols kaempferol, quercetin andmyricetin and their corresponding hydro-xyphenylacetic acid metabolites in the ele-vated plus maze. By Cica Vissiennon; Pro-motor Prof. Veronika Butterweck and Prof.Karen Nieber, College of Pharmacy, De-partment of Pharmaceutics, University ofFlorida (U.S.A.).

Diploma thesis (2010) Natural compoundswith a putative anti-inflammatory activityand their effect on NF-�B mediated genetransactivaton. By: Olivia Schrammel; Pro-motor: Prof. V.M. Dirsch, University ofVienna, Austria.

Diploma thesis (2010) Ausgewählte Dro-genextrakte der Traditionellen Chinesi-schen Medizin als mögliche Quelle neuerPTP1B Inhibitoren. By: Sandra Sterkl; Pro-

motor: Prof. V.M. Dirsch, University ofVienna, Austria.

Diploma thesis (2010) Analyse phenoli-scher Inhaltsstoffe von Drosera-Arten mit-tels narrow bore HPLC. By: Marija Crnogo-rac; Promotor: Ao. Univ.-Prof. LiselotteKrenn, Dept. f. Pharmakognosie, Univer-sität Wien, Austria.

Diploma thesis (2010) PhytochemischeUntersuchungen am Baumfarn Metaxyarostrata. By: Barbara Merkinger; Promotor:Ao. Univ.-Prof. Liselotte Krenn, Dept. f.Pharmakognosie, Universität Wien, Aus-tria.

Diploma thesis (2010) Screening of Chi-nese medicinal herbs for inhibition of NOproduction in RAW 264.7 macrophagesand activity guided isolation of the con-stituents of Radix et Rhizoma Notopterygii.(in German) By Patricia Hofbauer; Promo-tor: Prof. R. Bauer, Institute of Pharmaceu-tical Sciences, University of Graz, Austria.

Diploma thesis (2010) Pharmacological in-vestigations on the immunomodulatoryproperties of the Chinese herb Astragaliradix. By Sabine Auer; Promotor: Prof. R.Bauer, Institute of Pharmaceutical Scien-ces, University of Graz, Austria, in collabo-ration with Prof. LU Aiping Institute ofBasic Theory of TCM der China Academyof Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing,China.

Diploma thesis (2010) Development of anHPLC Assay for Senna leaves and Sennafruits. (in German) By Angelika Kobath;Promotor: Prof. R. Bauer, Institute of Phar-maceutical Sciences, University of Graz,Austria.

Diploma thesis (2010) Clarification of theinternal phylogeny of taxa in various trufflegenera. By Adriane Weinberger; Promotor:Prof. R. Bauer, Institute of PharmaceuticalSciences, University of Graz, Austria, incollaboration with Prof. Dr. Lars Bohlin, Di-vision of Pharmacognosy, University ofUppsala, Sweden.

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Diploma thesis (2010) Investigations on theestablishment of a monograph of the Chi-nese herb Notopterygii radix et rhizoma(Qianghuo) in the European pharma-copoeia. (in German) By Carina Wiedner;Promotor: Prof. R. Bauer, Institute of Phar-maceutical Sciences, University of Graz,Austria.

Diploma thesis (2010) Investigations on theestablishment of a monograph of the Chi-nese herb Radix et Rhizoma Salviae mil-tiorrhizae (Danshen) in the European phar-macopoeia. (in German) By Cornelia Grai-ner; Promotor: Prof. R. Bauer, Institute ofPharmaceutical Sciences, University ofGraz, Austria.

Diploma thesis (2010) Phytochemical In-vestigations on the Stem Bark of Zan-thoxylum gilletii De Wild. (in German) ByThomas Mair; Promotor: Prof. R. Bauer, In-stitute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Uni-versity of Graz, Austria.

Diploma thesis (2010) Phytochemical In-vestigations on the Leaves, Roots andStems of Piper sarmentosum Roxb. (inGerman) By Philipp Wirnsperger; Promo-tor: Prof. R. Bauer, Institute of Pharmaceu-tical Sciences, University of Graz, Austria.

Diploma thesis (2010) Investigations on theassay of astragaloside IV in Astragalusmongholicus var. mongholicus BUNGE. (inGerman) By Isabella Wolf; Promotor: Prof.R. Bauer, Institute of PharmaceuticalSciences, University of Graz, Austria.

Diploma thesis (2010) Screening of Chi-nese medicinal plants and testing of con-stituents from Sophora flavescens andPiper sarmentosum for inhibition of NOproduction in RAW 264.7 macrophages. (inGerman) By Katharina Krampl; Promotor:Prof. R. Bauer, Institute of PharmaceuticalSciences, University of Graz, Austria.

Diploma thesis (2010) Investigations on thecontent of salvianolic acid B and miltiron inthe roots of Salvia miltiorrhiza. (in German)By Michaela Braun; Promotor: Prof. R.Bauer, Institute of Pharmaceutical Scien-ces, University of Graz, Austria.

Diploma thesis (November 2010) Überar-beitung ausgewählter Monographien desösterreichischen Arzneibuchs. By: MonikaHeß; Promoter: Prof. B. Kopp, Departmentof Pharmacognosy, University of Vienna,Austria.

Diploma thesis (August 2010) Screening ofvarious extracts of Artemisia dracunculusL. for antidiabetic activity in rats. By:Weinöhrl Stefanie Elisabeth; Promoter:Prof. B. Kopp, Department of Pharmacog-nosy, University of Vienna, Austria, andProf. Dr. Veronika Butterweck, University ofFlorida, U.S.A.

Diploma thesis (Juni 2010) Phytonutri-ments and chemoprevention – role ofpolyphenols in prevention of colorectalcancer or chronic diseases. By: KatharinaSchüller; Promoter: Prof. B. Kopp, Depart-ment of Pharmacognosy, University ofVienna, Austria.

Diploma thesis (Juni 2010) Phytochemi-sche Untersuchungen an ausgewähltenDrogen der Traditionellen ChinesischenMedizin (TCM). By: Isabella Sprinzl; Pro-moter: Prof. B. Kopp, Department of Phar-macognosy, University of Vienna, Austria.

Diploma thesis (Juni 2010) Phytochemi-sche Untersuchungen: von der Grund-lagen-Forschung zur Arzneibuchmono-graphie. By: Johannes Köhbach; Pro-moter: Prof. B. Kopp, Department of Phar-macognosy, University of Vienna, Austria.

Graduated thesis in Pharmacy (2010) Lipo-somal carriers of artemisinin and cur-

cumin and their in vivo activity in a murinmodel of malaria. By: Margherita Gra-zioso; Promotor: Prof. A.R. Bilia and Dr.Benedetta Isacchi, Dept. PharmaceuticalSciences, University of Florence, Italy.

Graduated thesis in Pharmacy (2010) Lipo-somal carriers of cyclodextrin-curcumincomplexes for dermal use. By: GiuliaGuidelli; Promotor: Prof. A.R. Bilia andFrancesca Mazzacuva, Dept. Pharmaceu-tical Sciences, University of Florence, Italy.

Graduated thesis in Herbal Techni-ques (2010) Viola odorata L.: phytochemi-cal analysis and quality control. By: FurlanClaudia; Promotor: Prof. A.R. Bilia and Dr.Anastasia Karioti, Dept. PharmaceuticalSciences, University of Florence, Italy.

Graduated thesis in Herbal Techni-ques (2010) Optimisation of separation ofpolymethoxyflavonoids from Artemisiaannua L. By: Ros Giorgia; Promotor: Prof.A.R. Bilia and Dr. Anastasia Karioti, Dept.Pharmaceutical Sciences, University ofFlorence, Italy.

Editorial remark

All contributions for the GA-Newsletter are welcome. Deadlinefor submission for the next editionis fixed to May 20th 2010. Pleasesend all contributions to: Prof. Dr.A. Hensel, University of Münster,Institute for Pharmaceutical Biol-ogy and Phytochemistry, Hittorf-strasse 56, D-48149 Münster, Ger-many; [email protected]