Pharmacognosy: Associations & Societies

JSP currently has over 1,200 members including regular, student, supporting, and honorary categories. The JSP's primary scope lies in the chemical, biochemical and biological properties of medicinal natural products and their derivatives. Research topics include the search for novel medicinal sources, structure elucidation, chemotaxonomy, genetic analysis, pharmacology, and biosynthesis.

ASP currently[when?] has over 1,100 active and associate members. Appromimately 40 percent of the active members reside outside the U.S. and Canada in more than 60 countries.

Every year, society organizes a customary annual national convention and once in four year international conference to compile the thoughts of scientists and academicians engaged in pharmacognosy research.

The Society originated as the Plant Phenolics Group which was inaugurated in Cambridge, U.K. in 1957 as an informal group of chemists and biologists interested in the phenolic constituents of plants. As the interest of members widened, many wished to include their own fields within the activities of the group and it was resolved at the 7th Annual General Meeting of the Plant Phenolics Group at Leeds in 1964 to become the Phytochemical Group. As a result continued expansion of the membership the Group became the Phytochemical Society at the Annual General Meeting at Imperial College, London on the 11th April 1967. In recognition of the growing membership of Continental Europe the Society adopted its present name at an Extraordinary General Meeting in London on 6th January 1977 and as such held its first regular meeting in Continental Europe in Ghent in September of that year.