Department of Pharmacognosy

Was founded in 2006.

Head of the Department: Professor Chichoyan N.B.

From 1974 to 1987 students of Yerevan State Medical Institute studied pharmacognosy at the Department of “Pharmaceutical chemistry”, within the course of pharmacognosy. Course was directed by L.V. Revazova. Author a lot of scientific works, manuals.

 In 1987 the course of pharmacognosy was organized alongside with the “Clinical pharmacology, pharmacognosy and botany” Department. The Head of the Department was prof. R.Gh. Boroyan. Many thesis papers have been prepared and defended under their supervisions.

Several research works contributing to the development of pharmacognosy as individual branch of science have been carried out. Certain species of Armenian flora have been studied Within those years following research works have been carried out: The pharmacognostic analyisis of  some medicinal species from Asteraceae and Rosaceae families of Armenian flora ( L.V. Revazova, I. H. Sochikyan1988).The species of genus Hypericum growing in different climatic zones of Armenia were studied ( E. A. Melikyan, 1988).The phyto-chemical analysis of gums obtained from fructiferous trees of family Rosaceae ( apricot, peach tree, plum tree, almond tree) of Armenian flora  has been conducted, which has significantly increased the application of national binders of herbal origin in some areas of industry ( N. B. Chichoyan 2000).The antioxidant activities of several plant origin preparations were studied by modern methods (L. A. Amiryan 2000).The chemical composition of seeds and green mass of Cyamopsis tetragonoloba L. growing in different regions of Armenia (K. H. Dumanyan 2002).

First manuals of pharmacognosy were complied in Armenian authors L. V. Revazova, N. B. Chichoyan 2000). and English (L. A. Amiryan, 2007) were designed for Pharmacy Faculty.

From 2006 till nowadays Pharmacognosy Department is an individual department, and the Head of the Department is Professor, PhD N. B. Chichoyan. Several PhD thesis papers (Pharmacognostic research of Armenian and Arstakh flora) are implemented under her scientific supervision.

Parallel with the educational process the department students participate in all research activities (isolation of volatile oil from the raw material, extraction of biologically active compounds, pharmacognostic analysis of herbal raw materials). Students represent the results of the research works at the scientific conferences.The articles related to the scientific researches carried out by department co-workers are periodically published in international (Web of science , Scopus, Thomson Reuters) and local medical journals

YSMU Pharmacognosy department is in collaboration with other departments of university such as “Medical microbiology”, “Medical physics” and with the laboratory of scientific research. The department is also in scientific relation with RA NAS Institute of hydroponic problems and NAS RA, Institute of botany, SPC “Armbiotechnology”.

The Department is also in collaboration with the Humboldt University of California (USA), Wales University of Bangor (UK), the “Pharmacognosy” Department of Tbilisi Medical University.