Assam down town University’s Centre for Research on Ethnomedicine (CREM), under the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science, hosted a two-day workshop on Extraction, Fractionation, Isolation, and Characterization of Natural Products.

The first day of the workshop began with a welcome message by Prof. Dr. Saikat Sen Sen, Dean of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science. Honorable Vice Chancellor Prof. (Dr.) N C Talukdar gave an inspiring lecture, emphasizing the importance of natural products in drug development and the role of curiosity in scientific advancement. Dr. Rakesh Maurya, Former Chief Scientist and Head of the Medicinal and Process Chemistry Division at CSIR-CDRI, Lucknow, delivered the keynote lecture titled "Plants to Patients," which discussed the historical evolution of herbal medicine as well as the critical function of plants in drug discovery. Dr. Maurya highlighted findings from his study on chemicals that fight osteoporosis, which included the commercial medications "Reunion" and "Joint Fresh."

On the second day, Dr. Maurya led sessions on plant selection, collection, processing, extraction, and isolation, highlighting key factors and techniques for selecting and authenticating plant materials. He also covered structure elucidation techniques, such as mass spectrometry and NMR spectroscopy, enhancing the session's interactivity with practical examples. Participants engaged in hands-on training for extraction, fractionation, column chromatography, and thin layer chromatography (TLC), gaining practical skills essential for their research.

The program greatly improved the participants' comprehension of and ability to use practical skills in natural product research. Participants, inspired by Dr. Maurya's work in plant-derived therapies, are now encouraged to pursue creative research projects that will contribute to their academic advancement and future initiatives in the field.