The year has already seen the opening of our information centre at the Cellulose Valley Technology Park, which will provide people with a central point of inquiry regarding the project. The Information Centre will also be the headquarters for collaborative research ventures with our industry partners.

Southern Cross University has recently appointed one of the world’s leading plant scientists to its new Centre for Phytochemistry, which will play a major role in the development of the Cellulose Valley project.

We have launched into the new year with funding for a Business Plan, an Employment Study and an Agricultural Study, after obtaining generous funding from Southern Cross University and the Federal Government.

Finally, 1999 will witness the inaugural ‘Herbal Medicine into the New Millennium’ international conference, sponsored by New South Wales State and Regional Development, to be held at Southern Cross University’s Lismore campus from 16-18 June.

We look forward to seeing many of you at this major symposium, which will feature one of the largest gatherings of the world’s leading herbal medicine experts.

Please keep up the valuable feedback and support, which is what has enabled us to keep moving forward with such momentum!

Occupied by our Project Manager, Derrin Davis, along with a Researcher and an Administrative Assistant, the Information Centre will provide a central point of contact for Cellulose Valley inquiries.

Maizegrove will also provide a central administrative venue for research planning and development regarding natural plant products.

Professor Waterman, a Doctor of Science who comes from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, and has authored over 450 papers and book chapters, will head the new Centre for Phytochemistry at Southern Cross University.

The function of the centre will be to establish, at the University, expertise in the rapid separation, isolation and identification of compounds from natural sources. The centre will use a range of sophisticated techniques, most notable among which are nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and mass spectroscopy, both linked where necessary to high pressure liquid chromatography. With this equipment we expect to be able to work on very small amounts of material and rapidly characterise the important constituents.

Why do we do this? In particular we expect to be focusing on the identification of compounds that exhibit biological activity. This will be important to understanding the way in which herbal or plant-derived medicines cause their beneficial effects and is essential to improving their quality, reliability and safety.

The Centre will be involved primarily in medicinally-related studies. However, it will also have the skills and equipment to allow it to interact in other areas where plant or microbial chemistry is important, such as the development of crop resistance to herbivores and pathogens, and environmental issues in general. In these areas there are also considerable opportunities to interact with other major research efforts based at Southern Cross University.

The Centre will be offering MSc and PhD research degrees. It is anticipated that there will be international interest in its research programs and that it will attract researchers from abroad as well as Australia. Indeed, from late 1999 research students will be coming in from Thailand, Philippines and Mexico and applications have been received from China and Germany. The Centre looks to become an important training ground for developing world scientists in phytochemistry and phytopharmacology and expects to network with major regional research centres, particularly in SE Asia and Oceania. There are already links into research organisations in the UK.

Some of you may remember Professor Waterman’s visit to the University last year, during which he provided consultative advice on the development of the Cellulose Valley project.

The planning process for the Cellulose Valley Technology Park will of course benefit tremendously from Professor Waterman’s presence and the activities of the new Centre for Phytochemistry. The centre will add enormous value to the development of our R&D infrastructure and, ultimately, Quality Assurance for the herbal medicine industry - in Australia, and worldwide.

The project will result in both organisations combining their expertise and technologies to research the deconvolution of crude natural product extracts and structure elucidation of isolated compounds. The ultimate objective of the venture is to present a comprehensive drug discovery service to third parties and to identify new intellectual property relevant to drug discovery.

This project marks the onset of international collaborations in natural plant products research that will identify Cellulose Valley and Southern Cross University as an important centre for plant products research in Australia, and internationally

The Plan is being prepared by Mr Ian Walkley, the Secretary of the Technology Parks Association of Australia, and an acknowledged Australian authority on the development of Technology Parks. In particular, Ian has been closely involved with the planning for the Brisbane and Macquarie University Technology Parks.

The Business Plan will include final details of the management structure for the Cellulose Valley Technology Park, along with cash flows for operation, and will lay out the terms and conditions for organisations to establish themselves on the Park.

In addition, a Premises Committee is being established to set the criteria and ethical guidelines for activities allowed on the Park.

Federal grants to the value of $30,000 have been obtained from the Northern Rivers Area Consultative Committee (NRACC) to fund:

In addition to the speakers listed on the brochure, we are delighted to announce that Ms Lise Alschuler ND, the Chair of the Botanical Medicines Committee at one of the world’s leading natural medicine educational institutions - Bastyr University – will be presenting a paper in the session, Treating the People. Other additions to this exclusive list of speakers are Dr Francesco di Pierro from Indena, one of the world’s largest botanical extractors, based in Italy, and Dr Fiona Cumming, the recently appointed Manager of the new Office for Complementary Medicines with the Therapeutic Goods Administration in Australia.

The conference has even attracted the attention of award-winning plant scientist, Professor Dr Her Royal Highness Princess Chulabhorn of Thailand, who will be speaking at this event in the Science: at the Cutting Edge session.

For those of you who live in Northern NSW, watch out for a series of television commercials about the conference, featuring the voice of ABC personality, Angela Catterns.

If you would like further information about the conference, or to register your expression of interest, please visit our conference website at:
http://www.scu.edu.au/herbconf or contact Karen Hanna at Norsearch on (02) 6620 3932 Email: khanna@scu.edu.au.

Sponsorship and media inquiries should be forwarded to: Monique Lewis on (02) 6620 3172 or Email: mlewis@scu.edu.au.

You may wish to participate in the conference as an exhibitor. This event provides an excellent opportunity to showcase your products and services to some of the industry’s key researchers, academics, manufacturers, and practitioners. If you would like to be an exhibitor at the conference, contact Karen Hanna at Norsearch.

We would like to warmly thank the following organisations for their generous support for this event:

The Conference Organising Committee
From left: Dr David Leach, ATTORI; Chris Oliver, Blackmores Research Centre; Monique Lewis, Public Relations, Graduate Research College / Cellulose Valley; Dr Stephen Myers, Head of School of Natural and Complementary Medicine; Hans Wohlmuth, Lecturer, School of Natural and Complementary Medicine; Judi Body, Coordinator, Graduate Research College / Cellulose Valley; Isabel Perdriau, Executive Officer, Office of the Vice-Chancellor; Julie Burton, Manager, Norsearch Conference Services; Karen Hanna, Professional Conference Organiser, Norsearch Conference Services. Absent: Professor Peter Baverstock