Korea food and drug safety ministry to host symposium on natural-product research

The food and drug safety ministry said Wednesday its food and drug safety evaluation institute will hold a joint symposium with the Korean Society of Pharmacognosy on Nov. 20 on the latest research trends in developing products based on natural substances.

The one-day event, to be held at Oscoda in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, is titled "Latest Research Trends in Natural-Product-Based Product Development." The symposium was organised jointly by the ministry's divisions handling medicines, cosmetics and health-functional foods rather than by its herbal-medicine unit alone, reflecting the widening use of natural materials across product categories.

The programme has four sessions. The first covers quality control of Korean herbal medicines, including a presentation by Chung Dae-hyun, a professor at Kyung Hee University's smart farm science department, on using explainable artificial intelligence for sensory inspection of medicinal herbs. Choi Jun-yong, head of the ministry-affiliated Natural Products Safety Management Institute, will discuss the institute's role.

The second session, on natural ingredients in cosmetics, includes a presentation by Jang Jung-yoon, head of the Korea Drug Testing Research Institute, on safety evaluation of natural cosmetic ingredients, and one by Lee Kang-hyuk, a team leader at Hyundai Bioland, on developing functional cosmetics from natural materials.

The third session addresses health-functional foods. Kim Eun-joo, secretary-general of the Korean International Life Sciences Society, will explain the approval review guidelines for functional ingredients, and Kim Jin-hak, a manager at Kolmar BNH, will present cases of functional ingredients recognised from global natural sources.

Registration opens Wednesday and is free to anyone interested in herbal medicines, cosmetics or health-functional foods. Attendees can sign up through a QR code or an online form with their name, affiliation and contact details.

The ministry said it expects the symposium to help companies develop natural-substance-based medicines, cosmetics and health-functional foods and to strengthen their evaluation capabilities.