Report from the Second Conference on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants of Southeast European Countries (2nd CMAPSEEC)

Introductory notes

Second Conference on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants of Southeast European Countries (2nd CMAPSEEC) was held from 29th of September till the 3rd October 2002, in hotel Athos Palace, Chalkidiki, Greece. Leadership in the.comanisation the of the Second Conference, which is official meeting of the Association for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants of Southeast European Countries (AMAPSEEC), has been given to Prof. Maria Couladis and Prof. Vassilios Roussis, from the Laboratory of Pharmacognosy, School of Pharmacy, University of Athens. Under their supervision, as well as supervision of the AMAPSEEC, four working committees were formed with the aim to facilitate conduction of the all activities at the Second Conference. Local Organising Committee has transferred technical.comanisation of the Conference to the agency Sun & See, Travel & Conference Services, which .comanised distribution of the first and the second announcement, containing call for papers and preliminary registration form, as well as presentation of all relevant data dealing with the keeping of the 2nd CMAPSEEC at the appropriate Internet site. Conference was imagined as international (regional) scientific and professional meeting, open for all those working in the field of MAPs. According to our previous determinations, working bodies of the 2nd CMAPSEEC consisted of four different committees. Organising Committee, Scientific Committee, Program Committee and Executive Committee were composed of 53 representatives from 13 countries, from which 3 of them (Albania, Turkey and Great Britain) had not their members in the AMAPSEEC. Composition of all mentioned committees could be found in the written materials from the Conference.

Main program

Call for papers was addressed to all those interested to prepare short lectures (15 minutes) and posters related to the Conference topics (biodiversity, conservation and sustainable use of biological resources; breeding, seed production and cultivation of MAPs; ethnobotany and ethnomedicine; targeted drug screening approaches; phytochemistry, isolation and synthesis of natural products; pharmacology and toxicology; industrial processing and economic aspects). Along with these contributions,.comaniser has anticipated keeping of several invited lectures. Book of Abstracts from the 2nd CMAPSEEC, distributed to participants during their registration (just before the start of the Conference) contained abstracts of 19 invited lectures, 25 short lectures and 160 posters. During the Conference, the most significant majority of all announced contributions were successfully presented. Simultaneously, commercial exhibition of MAPs, related products and books was kept all these days, in hotel lobby, in front of Conference's hall. In the frame of the main program of the Conference, on the 1st of October, the 3rd Member's meeting of the AMAPSEEC was held. Official language of the Conference was English.

Results

In preparation of 204 abstracts for the 2nd CMAPSEEC contributions of 468 authors from 26 countries, mainly from the region and other parts of the Europe, but also from Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Kenya and Tanzania), Asia (China, Saudi Arabia and Singapore) and America (USA), was recorded. Structure of authors and their contributions for each of the countries is given in Table 1.

Table 1. Structure of authors and their contributions

These data are highly indicative when comparing the 2^nd Conference with previous one, kept in the middle of year 2000, in Aranđelovac (FRY), where remarkable less number of authors (331), from smaller number of countries (16), contributed in the book of abstracts from that meeting with only 170 abstracts.

Among at least 200 participants (170 regularly registered), majority of them was those from the host country – Greece (at least a half). Remainder has come from Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Great Britain, Turkey, Italy, Albania, France and few other countries, even from Africa. Through their scientific and professional contributions and broad spectrum of other activities at the meeting, they fulfil Organiser’s expectations and justify keeping of such conferences.

After the Opening Ceremony, where representatives of the Local Organising Committee and AMAPSEEC addressed the participants, Prof. Vernon Heywood gave the first plenary lecture. In front of his presentation, Prof. Heywood was talking about the life and work of recently past Prof. Jeffrey Harborne, who gave an extraordinary contribution to contemporary phytochemistry, and to whom.comanisers devoted the 2^nd CMAPSEEC. In the continuations, following days, through several alternating poster and oral presentation sessions, the most significant majority of all announced contribution was very efficiently presented.

Third Member’s meeting of the AMAPSEEC

Keeping of the 3^rd Member’s meeting of the Association of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants of Southeast European Countries has been scheduled for the second day of the Conference October 1) and available time was extremely short (only one hour). In such occasion it was not possible to accomplished discussions on the five given items on the most appropriate manner. However, some very important decisions about further activities of the AMAPSEEC were made. For details, click here.

Attached details

Registration fees, which were estimated as rather high, according to majority of participants coming from regional countries, with the exception of those from Greece, significantly reflected to the number of registered participants. These fee were for the members of the AMAPSEEC, 135 EUR (162 EUR, after June 16); for non-members, 150 EUR (180 EUR, after June 16); for accompanying persons 75 EUR and for students 50 EUR (60 EUR, after June 16). For this amount Organiser provided bag, conference's materials, certificate on attendance, coupons for coffee breaks, free access to all working sessions, as well as Welcome cocktail. Conference's materials from the meeting consisted of printed Conference Program and Book of Abstract and promotional written and other materials given by sponsors. Additional payment of 40 EUR for Gala diner and 35 (or 40) EUR, for selected optional tour, was requested.

Along with Conference, rich social program was offered to participants and their accompanying persons. In this part, the most important items were: Welcome cocktail (hotel Athos Palace/Tropical bar, September 29), Gala diner (Villa Theophano/Tavern, October 1) and optional tours to Thessaloniki and Vergina (October 2).

Conclusion

The 2^nd CMAPSEEC was.comanised in very good agreement with previous decisions, coming out from the 1^st Conference and the 1^st and the 2^nd Member’s meeting of the AMAPSEEC. During four working days, through the main conference program, participants have an extraordinary opportunity to be informed about the actual efforts in the field of MAPs in the region. According to the number and quality of presented contributions, the Second Conference was very successful. Subsequently, main and additional program surely fulfilled expectations of the majority of participants. Purpose of keeping such conferences was, once again, fully approved. Simultaneously, selection of the host of the next one, which would be kept in September 2004 (in Slovakia), provided certainty of their continuity.

Acknowledgement

AMAPSEEC is extremely thankful to all those, which made possible successful keeping of the Second Conference on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants of Southeast European Countries (2^nd CMAPSEEC). First of all to Prof. Maria Couladis and Prof. Vassilios Roussis, who leaded whole.comanisation, to School of Pharmacy (University of Athens), to sponsors, as well as to the members of all working bodies of the 2^nd CMAPSEEC and all the participants.

Belgrade, December 31, 2002

President of the AMAPSEEC,

Mihailo Ristić MSc