Papers based on presentations at the 24th International Symposium
on the Chemistry of Natural Products and the 4th International Congress
on Biodiversity, Delhi, India, 26-31 January 2004
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Preface
Discoveries for the advancement of medicine and the understanding of
life sciences constitute one of the most powerful ways in which biodiversity
can contribute to the welfare of human society. Biodiversity and health
are intrinsically linked, and this link is vitally important to the
human race. Bioresources have tremendous potential in providing bioactive
compounds for the development of new lead candidates for pharmaceuticals,
nutraceuticals, and agrochemicals. Besides plant materials, the past
century has seen an increasing role played by microorganisms in the
production of antibiotics and other drugs for the treatment of serious
diseases. More recently, marine organisms have proved to be a rich source
of novel bioactive agents. The analysis of the human genome, as well
as advances in the description of the genomes of pathogenic microbes
and parasites, is permitting the determination of many of the protein
structures associated with disease processes. With the development of
new molecular targets based on these proteins, there is an increasing
demand for novel molecular diversity for screening.
To address these issues related to biodiversity, the University of
Delhi, in collaboration with the Council of Scientific and Industrial
Research (CSIR), organized a joint meeting of the biannual IUPAC Conferences
ICOB-4 and ISCNP-24 in Delhi during 26-31 January 2004. The scientific
program included nearly 175 plenary/invited lectures and 450 posters
by eminent scientists from all over the world. Presentations were made
in the areas of biodiversity and bioprospecting (13); innovative utilization
of bioresources (79); novel strategies in integrated pest management
(5); integration and conservation of bioresources (9); environmental,
economic, social, and ethnic perspectives of biodiversity (8); bioremediation
of industrial and nuclear waste (6); biodiversity and traditional systems
of medicine (7); biodiversity in nutrition, ecology, and cultures (2);
environmentally benign synthetic strategies and green chemistry (25);
nucleic acid chemistry, oligonucleotide synthesis, glycoconjugate chemistry,
glycobiology and genomics, and proteomics (21). Nearly 1000 eminent
scientists and research scholars from around the globe participated
in the meeting. The issue of biodiversity was discussed with emphasis
on different perspectives, e.g., natural products chemistry, biocatalysis,
nucleic acid chemistry, green chemistry, etc.
The conference made it possible for us to bring together people from
different disciplines on a single platform and benefited the army of
young scientists.
Virinder S. Parmar
Conference Editor
[Back to Contents]
President: G. Mehta (FNA Director, Indian Institute
of Science, Bangalore); Chairman: V. S. Parmar (Department of Chemistry,
University of Delhi).
Advisory Board: C. R. Babu (Chairperson, Pro-Vice Chancellor,
University of Delhi).
Members: P. S. Ahuja (India); J. Akkara (USA); S. K. Arora (India);
P. Balaram, FNA (India); R. Barbhaiya (India); D. StC. Black (Australia);
A. C. Burman (UK); S. Chandrasekaran, FNA (India); M. J. Collins (USA);
G. Cragg (USA); A. Datta, FNA (India); S. Dev, FNA (India); K. N. Ganesh,
FNA (India); A. K. Ganguly (USA); M. K. Gurjar (India); J. Iqbal, FNA
(India); M. Isobe (Japan); V. T. Ivanov (Russia); H. Kagan (France);
S. V. Kessar, FNA (India); J. M. Khanna (India); S. P. S. Khanuja (India);
G. Kishore (USA); L. Lange (Denmark); T. Lindhorst (Germany); B. B.
Lohray (India); S. Mallick; V. K. Manchanda (India); K. Mazumdar-Shaw
(India); J. P. Mittal, FNA (India); K. Mookhtiar (India); R. Mukherjee
(India); V. Nagaraja, FNA (India); K. Nagarajan, FNA (India); S. Narasimhan
(India); G. Nicolosi (Italy); T. Norin (Sweden); C. E. Olsen (Denmark);
D. Paintal, FNA (India); U. K. Pandit (Netherlands); V. Prakash (India);
Pushpangadan, (India); G. N. Qazi (India); Atta-ur-Rahman (Pakistan);
S. Ranganathan, FNA (India); P. Rao (India); S. Rao, FNA (India); S.
M. Roberts (UK); G. Rossey (France); B. N. Roy (India); O. Seitz (Germany);
B. Sener (Turkey); H. Singh, FNA (India); R. Singh (USA); N. J. de Souza
(India); K. Taira (Japan); E. J. Thomas (UK); S. Upadhyay (India); P.
Venkat (India); A. Venkateswarlu (India); H. Waldmann (Germany); A.
C. Watterson (USA); J. Wengel (Denmark); J. S. Yadav, FNA (India); A.
Zaks (USA); L.-H. Zhang (China).
