Dr. SOEURN Visal
Plants contain a wide range of bioactive compounds. Plants, not only provide food and shelter but can also cure many different kinds of diseases. Medical plants are used in different forms as traditional/herbal medicines, health supplements, cosmetics, and functional food products so called natural products.
Therefore, Faculty of Pharmacy (FoP) aims to propose “Natural Product Contest 2021” for UP pharmacy students by initiating innovative ideas to develop natural products and providing the information to further research studies in screening bioactive compounds and activities in in vitro, in vivo, and/or in a clinical trial of natural sources as effective herbal medicines, modern drugs, health supplements, cosmetics, and functional foods for beneficing to human health. This project has been announced since the beginning of January 2021. As the result, there are a total of 63 students (15 groups) joining this contest.
FoP launches the first meeting with groups of students who apply for the “Natural Products Contest 2021” on February 23, 2021, via Google Meet. This meeting provided the overall purposes and guidelines for winning the top three awards including (1) the contest’s overview, objective, and criteria, (2) timeline, and (3) introduction to Pharmacognosy laboratory and safety guidelines in laboratory’s practice.
Furthermore, the criteria to select the top three awardees are (1) students who produce a natural product with any categories that were proposed by the leadership team on a specific deadline, (2) students who conduct a presentation (e.g. oral presentation or poster presentation) in an organized event by the leadership team, and (3) the natural products will be evaluated by the committee’s board of the contest.
All research activities of plants or natural products will be conducted in the Pharmacognosy laboratory which support students, lecturers, and researchers to produce natural products and conduct studies and/or researches in the related field of interest.
