Academic Lecture Notice: Recommended Standards for Conducting and Reporting Ethnopharmacological Field Studies
Lecture Information
Topic：Recommended Standards for Conducting and Reporting Ethnopharmacological Field Studies
Speaker：Prof. Marco Leonti
Time: 14:00 – 14:40, July 13, 2026
Venue：Lecture Hall, 1st Floor, Building 15, Kunming Institute of Botany
About the speaker
Professor Marco Leonti works in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Cagliari, Italy. He specializes in applying evolutionary approaches to investigate the cultural history of human plant use, as well as the fundamental mechanisms underlying human selection of plants for medicinal and nutritional purposes. His current research focuses on the isolation and structural elucidation of bioactive secondary metabolites with anesthetic, antibacterial, and cytotoxic properties from traditional medicinal plants. An active member of the global academic community, Prof. Leonti serves on the Executive Council of the International Society of Ethnopharmacology and acts as Associate Editor of the Journal of Ethnopharmacology. He has delivered remarkable research achievements in the study of traditional medicinal plants across the Mediterranean and South American regions.
Lecture Overview
Regional ethnobotanical surveys of medicinal plants form the fundamental basis for conserving and developing local traditional medicinal plant resources and associated indigenous knowledge. Nevertheless, key questions remain: What minimum requirements must ethnopharmacological research meet when carrying out such fieldwork? How can such studies be standardized for publication to ensure their findings are comprehensible and reusable by researchers from diverse backgrounds?
Drawing on his extensive research and peer-review experience, Prof. Leonti will address common challenges encountered throughout the execution and publication workflows of regional medicinal ethnobotanical field surveys. He will analyze prevalent flaws and pitfalls seen in published papers, and share insights accumulated from his years of manuscript reviewing. This lecture will offer valuable inspiration for conducting traditional herbal medicine field surveys, as well as advancing the modernization and internationalization of herbal medicine research.
All students and researchers are warmly welcome to attend!