Research Journal of Pharmacognosy”; A new Iranian journal is born

I am very delighted to announce the launch of Research Journal of Pharmacognosy (RJP), a newborn peer reviewed scholarly Iranian journal dedicated to all fields of natural products and medicinal plants. The science of pharmacognosy as a major discipline of pharmacy is like a bridge between applied pharmacology and medicinal chemistry of natural products on one hand and herbal pharmaceutical technology and clinical research of botanicals knowledge on the other. It has been progressed to phytochemistry, ethnopharmacology, medical ethnobotany, plant biotechnology, herbal medicine, traditional medicine, zoo-therapeutics, marine pharmacognosy and industrial and metabolomic pharmacognosy. All of those areas may potentially lead the pharmaceutical and medical world to new natural sources for future drug discovery [1,2]. Although the term of pharmacognosy or studying of medications of natural sources as a multidisciplinary science was used for the first time in Europe more than 200 years ago, it seems that the most significant and influential physicians and scientists of Iran like Rhazes, Avicenna and Jorjani created the same meaning knowledge, namely as “Elm-ol Adwieh” for such kinds of sciences around 1000 years ago. Those pioneers made important contributions to pharmacy and medicine [1,3,4]. There are well-established networks and herbal industries inIranas well as a technical treasure of botanical and herbal medicine professionals. The postgraduate PhD degrees in pharmacognosy in Iranian schools of pharmacy were started from a quarter-century before. Hopes to find more accomplishments especially in the natural products chemistry and pharmacology disciplines are flourishing now. At this moment, several enthusiastic researchers who are doing their research activities related to natural products fields have been inspired by the treasures of Traditional Iranian Medicine. They have made significant contributions to the international scientific community. The potential hegemonic position of Iran as a multi-cultural and multiethnic country in the Persian Gulf region, its considerable advances through education and standard training of pharmacognosy, traditional medicine and medicinal plants, the rising number of Iranian universities of medical sciences and research centers, different climates and geographical conditions of Iran that lead to growth of numerous plant species, increasing use of natural remedies and phytomedicines as well as long and prolific history of medicinal plants in Iran are the facts that show Iran’s potential of growth and development of pharmacognosy. However there is no specific Iranian journal which covers the subject of pharmacognosy as a vast and important knowledge of contemporary Iranian medicine and pharmacy. Pharmacognostical studies are accelerating in Iran and a unique journal is very important to this acceleration and may lead to a better scientific productivity in this field [1,3-5]. To fulfill that need, it is with great pleasure that “The Iranian Society of Pharmacognosy” publishes the “Research Journal of Pharmacognosy” with efforts of a team consisting of our brilliant editorial board, dynamic reviewers and staffs and our talented publisher. The Iranian Society of Pharmacognosy invites all interested researchers from the different areas of the natural products and medicinal plants to consider submitting their relevant high quality manuscripts to RJP. We hope you enjoy reading our first issue and we welcome your contributions and opinions that help us to make the scientific roadmap of the newborn RJP.