This project supports the participation by ten U.S. scientists in a Symposium on the Chemistry of Natural Products, scheduled to be held January 4-8, 1996 in Karachi, Pakistan. The Pakistani organizer is Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman, Director of the H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry at the University of Karachi. The symposium, and a US-Pakistan Workshop that will follow, will deal with frontier areas of natural product chemistry. The program will consist of plenary lectures, session lectures and poster presentations. The topics will include: physiologically active compounds from Pakistani natural sources and traditional (Unani) medicinal preparations; marine natural products; new methods of isolation and separation of secondary metabolites; new approaches to detection of bioactivity in naturally-derived extracts; advances in the methodology of structure determination; the potential of Pakistani natural products as synthons for new medicinal agents; and the role of biotechnology in Pakistan's science and technology. Scope: This project links some of the most active US researchers, in natural product chemistry, with one of the best institutes in the developing countries in the field. The H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry has organized several past symposia on natural product chemistry, with participation by eminent scientists from around the world, and with high quality publications resulting from these meetings. The US delegation is to include at least four scientists with recent doctorate degrees, and two female scientists. The project will be beneficial to U.S. and to Pakistan scientists and also to participants from countries in South Asia and the Middle East which are usually represented. The project will help many of the scientists in these countries to establish contacts with scientists from the U.S. for future collaboration.
