Department of Pharmacognosy and Botany

History of the Department

The faculty of pharmacy was established in 1997 at the Bogomolets National Medical University and in the same year students were recruited for its first course. The university’s administration previously carried out significant work on the formation of the professorial and teaching staff of the departments, and the creation of the material, technical, educational and methodological base of the newly formed faculty.

Until 2002, the faculty had a single specialized pharmaceutical department – the department of pharmacy organization and economy with courses in pharmacognosy and botany and drug technology, which was headed by D.S. Volokh – a Doctor of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Pharmaceutical chemistry and toxicological chemistry were assigned to the all-university department of biochemistry, biological and pharmaceutical chemistry, and organic chemistry (head of the department, professor Yu.I. Gubskyi).

In 2001, a department of correspondence studies was opened at the Faculty of Pharmacy, which was headed by Professor Sereda P.I.

In 2002, the first graduation of pharmacists, who entered the university for full-time studies, was carried out.

All this time, the management of the university, first of all, in the person of the vice-rector for scientific and pedagogical work, academician of the NAS of Ukraine V.P. Shirobokov, carried out targeted work on expanding the material and technical base of the faculty, attracting highly qualified specialists in the pharmaceutical industry to the teaching work, creating new Departments This was required both by the expansion of the student contingent and by the ever-increasing requirements for the training of pharmaceutical professionals.

Based on this, in accordance with the Order of March 15, 2002, three new specialized departments were created at the university: the department of pharmacognosy and botany, which was headed by Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor Sereda P.I.; Department of Organization and Economics of Pharmacy headed by Doctor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Professor D.S. Volokh; the department of pharmacy and industrial technology of drugs, the management of which was entrusted to the candidate of pharmaceutical sciences, associate professor Moskalenko L.G.

So, the department of pharmacognosy and botany takes its historical beginning from March 15, 2002. The department was assigned educational disciplines: pharmacognosy, pharmaceutical botany, resources of medicinal plants and the specialization course “Medicinal plants and phytotherapy”.

The teaching staff of the department at that time included Sereda P.I., MD, professor (head of the department), Maksyutina N.P., Ph.D., professor (professor of the department), Hnatenko V.M. (assistant of the department), Ishchenko M.V. (senior laboratory technician), the following worked part-time at the department: Todorova V.I., candidate of pharmaceutical sciences, associate professor, Davtyan L.L., candidate of pharmaceutical sciences, associate professor, Butska V.E., candidate of pharmaceutical sciences, associate professor, Perevozchenko I. I., candidate of pharmaceutical sciences, associate professor, V.M. Minarchenko, candidate of biological sciences (and later doctor of biological sciences).

From that time, the formation of the department as an independent unit began, in which active scientific-pedagogical, educational-methodical, scientific work was carried out, in which one of the key roles was played by Professor Maksyutina N.P., who at that time had a huge professional experience in all these directions.

The department was actively replenished with new teachers: in 2003, ambitious specialists I.S. Cholak joined the department. and L.M. Makhinya, later O.M. Strumenska, candidate of medical sciences and N.P. Kovalska, candidate of pharmaceutical sciences.

Over time, graduate students appeared at the department: Oleksiy Kovalskyi, Abudeikh Zeyad, Yuliya Tsimbalista, Oleksandra Matsiychuk, Alina Butko, Gayane Lamazyan, Vitaly Pidchenko, who successfully completed and defended their candidate theses and the vast majority remained to work at the department.

Assistants of the department Cholak I.S. and Makhinya L.M.  also defended their dissertations and now they are employees of the department already in the status of associate professors.

The scientific potential of the department was seriously increased with the appearance at the department of U.V. Karpyuk in 2009 (currently a doctor of pharmaceutical sciences, professor) – a student of professor V.S. Kyslychenko, a well-known scientist in the field of development of medicinal products of natural origin.

The teaching potential was significantly strengthened with the arrival of the candidate of medical sciences, pharmacologist O.I. Yemelyanova to the department in 2011, because it is well known that the pharmacological properties of BAS of medicinal plants are a key element in the creation of modern herbal preparations, in connection with which the symbiosis of knowledge of pharmacology students and pharmacognosy is an important component in the training of pharmaceutical specialists.

Thanks to such a powerful team, a multi-vector scientific, scientific-pedagogical, educational-methodical activity was initiated and successfully developed at the department – from the creation of the first educational-methodical materials and programs in the disciplines to teaching aids and textbooks.

From 2013 to the present, the department is headed by Professor Valentina Mykolaivna Minarchenko, who successfully continues the path of the department started by the luminaries of pharmacognostic science. Currently, the department has 10 permanent employees, including 2 professors: V.M. Minarchenko and U.V. Karpyuk, 8 assistant professors: N.P. Kovalska, L.M. Makhinya, I.S. Cholak, O.I Yemelyanova ., Butko A.Yu., Pidchenko V.T., Strumenska O.M., Lamazyan H.R. and 2 part-time workers T. S. Dvirna and I. A. Timchenko.

In 2020, the department of pharmacognosy and botany initiated the annual scientific and practical conference with international participation “PLANTA+. SCIENCE, PRACTICE AND EDUCATION”, which for the first time was dedicated to the memory of Professor Maksyutina Nina Pavlivna with the publication of materials in Ukrainian and English. The conference was attended not only by domestic scientists from the 16 largest universities of Ukraine, but also representatives from 8 countries of the world, including Lithuania, Poland, Taiwan, Moldova, Slovakia, Norway, Germany and the USA. The annual holding of the conference contributes to the expansion of the exchange of experience of modern scientific research in the field of botany, pharmacognosy, resource science, phytochemistry and related disciplines with the prospect of using this knowledge to train widely erudite specialists in the pharmaceutical industry.