A SHORT HISTORY OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL PRODUCTS (ISDNP)
The ISDNP was established in 2000. An international symposium and workshop, “The
Utilization of Natural Products in Developing Countries: Trends and Needs” was organized
from July 9-14, 2000 at the University of West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, with the Special Unit
for Technical Co-operation among Developing Countries of the United Nations
Development Programme (SUTC/DC-UNDP).
Some 70 participants from 24 countries attended the inaugural symposium and
workshop of the ISDNP. After the symposium, the participants decided that an
organization should be formed, so that the friendships and collaboration which had begun
should not be allowed to end after such a successful symposium. It was decided to
establish a society, the ISDNP, which was incorporated in Jamaica with the Natural
Products Institute, where one of its founding presidents and host of the symposium at
UWI in 2000 was the late Prof. A. Mansingh, the executive Director, at its secretariat. At the
inaugural meeting, it was also decided that subsequent symposia should be held
biennially and the National University of Singapore, Singapore was chosen as the next
venue of the symposium of the Society. Prof. Benny Tan was chosen as the host and the
next President of the ISDNP at the Singapore symposium with Prof. Mansingh as its
Secretary, and Dr. Trevor Yee was selected as the Society's Treasurer.
At the second International symposium of the Society in Singapore in 2002, the
participants there voted that Nanjing University in China and one of the old capitals of
China would be the venue for the third symposium and Prof. Rex Tan would be the next
host. After the Nanjing, China symposium in 2004, Prof. Rex Tan became the next
President of the Society and it was decided Profs. Mansingh and Benny Tan would be
designated as Founding Presidents. At the Nanjing symposium also Prof. Yi Zhun Zhu was
elected as the new Secretary and Prof. Paul Reese as the Caribbean area representative.
The fourth international symposium of the ISDNP was held in Leysin in 2006, in the
mountainous alpine region of Switzerland with Prof. Kurt Hostettmann of the University of
Geneva and Lausanne as the host and incoming President. By this time the practice of the
new host being installed as the new President of the Society was established and it was
also decided in Leysin, that to provide continuity by the executive committee, the
outgoing President would be designated as a Vice President and also that the incoming
host be designated as Vice President.
The fifth ISDNP symposium organized jointly with the International Organization for
Chemistry in Development (IOCD) was held in Kasane in 2008, in the beautiful Okavango
Delta in the northern part of Botswana bordering Namibia, Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe
with Prof. Berhanu Abegaz of the Univ. of Botswana as the new host and incoming
President.
The sixth ISDNP symposium organised jointly with the 7th International Symposium
on Chromatography of Natural Products was held in the medieval university city of Lublin,
approx. 200 Km to south east of Warsaw, Poland in 2010. Prof. Kaziemierz Glowniak of the
Medical University of Lublin, was the new host and the current President of the ISDNP. As a
measure of the growth in the attendance of these symposia of the Society, this joint sixth
ISDNP and 7th ISCNP symposium attracted 250 participants from 44 countries, and had 23
plenary lectures, 30 short lectures with 154 posters on display.
The seventh ISDNP symposium is being planned at Amity University, Noida, Delhi,
India in 2012, with Prof. Palpu Pushpangadan as the new Chairman and Prof. V. George as
the Organizing Secretary.
