


ANNOUNCEMENT 2021 GA AWARDS
GA has scheduled three Awards for 2021
Egon Stahl Award in Silver: a Silver medal and an award of 3,000 € to scientists up to the age of about forty, who have published outstanding scientific work during the years following their graduation
Bionorica Phytoneering Award: an award of 10,0000 € to young scientists (normally younger than 45) for outstanding research in the field of development and application of phytopharmaceutical products
Dr. Willmar Schwabe Scholarship
A scholarship of 10,0000 € with the aim to support research of young scientists, especially from developing countries in leading research institutions.

Nature Reviews Highlight the Importance of Natural Products in Drug Discovery
Advances and opportunities of natural products research for the development of new therapeutics was just highlighted with a publication in the prestigious journal Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, of course, a widely read and influential journal. This publication was prepared with the participation of multiple GA members (including the current GA President Prof. Dr. Judith M. Rollinger and Vice-President Prof. Michael Heinrich) and under the leadership of the natural product-focused open innovation platform International Natural Product Sciences Taskforce (INPST) coordinated by Dr. Atanas G. Atanasov (first author of the publication).

Welcome to 2021 – reflection and outlook
What is a society’s impact without bringing together its members? Without fruitful personal discussions, inspiring conferences, without social events and get-togethers with colleagues and friends? 2020 was an exceptional and demanding year for all of us. Let’s briefly condense and reflect what happened over the past year in our society, and share with you some forthcoming endeavours. We wish you happiness and health for 2021!

Mahabir Gupta, 1942-2020
Mahabir Prashad Gupta, born on October 3, 1942 in Gajsinghpur, India passed away on December 14th as a consequence of Covid-19. He was admitted to hospital in early November, had tested negative a week before he died and was out of the Covid ward. He then tested positive again and passed away following complications of the disease. Since 1972 he was a professor of Pharmacognosy at the University of Panama, Republic of Panama with many roles and responsibilities associated with it for nearly fifty years.

In memoriam Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Hartmut Derendorf (1953-2020)
The GA community was saddened to learn of the sudden death of Prof Dr. Hartmut Derendorf on Monday, November 23, at the age of 67. Professor Derendorf was a world-renowned expert in pharmacokinetics and pharmacometrics.

14th GA Young Researchers’ Workshop
The GA Young Researchers’ Workshop (YRW) 2020 took place on November 7th and was for the first time held online as an eSymposium.

Planta Medica Special Issue for Prof. Wolfgang Kubelka
Thanks to the initiative of the editor-in-chief Robert Fürst a special issue of Planta Medica could be dedicated to Prof. Wolfgang Kubelka on the occasion of the 85th birthday.

Egon Stahl Award in Gold to Professor A. Douglas Kinghorn from GA
The prestigious Egon Stahl-Award in Gold 2020 is bestowed to Prof. Dr. A. Douglas Kinghorn in recognition of his leading role in the natural product drug discovery, in particular those with anticancer, cancer chemopreventive, and substances with a sweet taste and taste-modifying agents.

Egon Stahl Award in Bronze to Dr. S. Vlad Luca from GA
The prestigious Egon Stahl-Award 2020 with Bronze Medal is bestowed to Dr. Simon Vlad Luca from Technical University of Munich, Germany, in recognition of his valuable contributions to pharmaceutical biology and analytical phytochemistry, in particular his studies on bioactive metabolites from Verbascum ovalifolium Donn ex Sims and Verbascum blattaria L.