The Amrita School of Pharmacy is one of the four schools at the health campus at Kochi. The School started as a Center of Excellence in 1997, a year before the Amrita Hospital started functioning on that same campus. Over the past decade, it has established itself as an educational institution of choice for those wanting to pursue a career in pharmacy.
Pharmasearch 2008 was recently organized at the school in order to mark National Pharmacy Week celebrations. The program began at 9:00 am with a prayer and the lighting of the lamp by Swami Poornamritananda Puri. Over 300 delegates participated; several were from other pharmacy colleges in the state as well. Four scientific sessions that elaborated on current trends in pharmacy were conducted; these sessions were chaired by eminent practitioners, several from the Amrita Hospital itself.
One of the missions of the school is to bridge the ever-widening gap between modern pharmaceuticals and traditional drug systems. Towards this end, the school plans to train herbal pharmacists to work on traditional formulations in collaboration with traditional practitioners, devising methods of cultivation, standardization and scientific codification of the processes involved. One of the scientific sessions included a talk on Drugs from Plants. The speaker was Prof. D. Aravindakshan, Managing Director of Agastya Biopharma Ltd. from Palakkad.
Other speakers included Dr. R. Saraswathi, Director at Alshifa College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Perinthalmanna who spoke on Career Opportunities for Undergraduates in Pharmacy and Prof. M. S. Ganachari, Professor at the KLE College of Pharmacy in Belgaum who spoke on the topic — Clinical Trials: A Pharmacist’s Perspective. Other speakers included Mr. P Selvam, from the Amrita School of Pharmacy and Dr. V. Balakrishnan, from the Department of Gastroenterology, Amrita School of Medicine, who spoke on the topic — Clinical Trials: A Clinician’s Perspective. (see complete program schedule)
Dr. K. G Revikumar, Principal of the Amrita School of Pharmacy handed over certificates of participation to the delegates at 5:00 pm as the one-day symposium drew to a close.
December 10, 2008
School of Pharmacy, Kochi
