All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) will host the 41st annual conference of the Indian Pharmacological Society (IPS) from December 18 to 20, 2008. The focuses of the conference will be the contemporary issues in basic pharmacology, toxicology, clinical research and herbal medicines.

The International Conference on Translation Pharmacology (ICTP) will also be held along with the IPS meet, said its organizing secretary Prof Y K Gupta. Around 200 national and international experts on the streams would participate in the conference to be chaired by Prof N K Ganguly, former DG of ICMR. Scientists, pharmacologists, clinical pharmacists, representatives from clinics, labs and the pharma industry and officials of regulatory bodies would be among those to attend the meet.

Prof Gupta said the ICTP would discuss some of the key aspects on translation pharmacology. He said that the laboratory research in drug development gets worthy only when it was translated into drugs. And, in this process, the academic institutions, scientific laboratories and drug industry play a combined and crucial role. Hence both the events would be clubbed together, he added.

Brain-storming sessions will be held on issues and concerns in the national scenario such as pharmacology curriculum, pharmacovigilance, PMS & PSUR, endothelin receptors as drug target, environmental toxicology, herbal drug research- traditional to target based approach, analysis of clinical research in India and the roadmap ahead.

To attract the young pharmacologists, special programs like national quiz programme, round table dinner discussion groups with luminaries would also be arranged. Pre-conference workshops on different themes for a limited number of young participants have also been planned, he said.