THE 4th Annual CNPD (Centre for Natural Products Discovery) Conference

Abstract

The 4th Annual CNPD (Centre for Natural Products Discovery) Conference held on 19-22 June 2023 at the John Lennon Arts and Design Building, has been a remarkable success. The feedback from the participants from all over the world (e.g., Bangladesh, Czech Republic, China, Pakistan, India, Italy, Nepal, Romania, South Korea, Switzerland, The Philippines, Turkey and USA), as well as from our home participants, was simply excellent. Many commented that our conference is one of the best conferences they have ever attended.

Prof Laura Bishop, PVC Science opened the conference, and welcomed the participants on behalf of the Faculty and LJMU. Prof Satya Sarker, Director of School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, and the Founding Head of the Centre for Natural Products Discovery, presented an overview of the centre and welcomed everybody on behalf of the School and the Centre.

During the conference, several outstanding invited talks were presented and the quality of the short 10 min presentations was also excellent. The poster session was lively and highly interactive, the extended tea/coffee breaks and lunch breaks provided a fantastic opportunity for networking. There was a lively panel discussion on the contemporary issues in natural products research, and the impact of AI on natural products research and scientific publications dominated the discussion.

There were three prizes sponsored by Goss Scientific, and Perkin Elmer, given to the best poster, the best short oral presentation and the best overall performance, selected by a panel of four judges, two internal and two externals. We are absolutely delighted to see our PhD student Waed Alsheikh won the best oral and overall best performance prizes. It can be mentioned that Waed is the Faculty Winner of the 3 min thesis presentation, and the LJMU winner through popular votes.

The conference concluded with my ‘vote of thanks’, and a declaration that the 5th Annual CNPD conference will be held online over Teams in 2024, and 6th Annual CNPD conference will be held face-to-face in Liverpool in 2025.