Pharmacognosy Program Overview

Pharmacognosy is the study of natural products—found in plants and animals—that are used therapeutically in medicine. At least 25% of prescription drugs and 40% of over-the-counter drugs contain one or more active ingredients from plant or animal sources.

Provided through the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, USP offers both master's and doctoral degrees in chemistry, biochemistry, and pharmacognosy. The program allows students to specialize in analytical, inorganic, organic, computational or physical chemistry.

Designed for both the traditional and the non-traditional student, courses are offered in the late afternoon or evening hours, on a part-time or full-time basis. The curriculum offers the option of a master's non-thesis degree program, master's thesis degree program, or doctoral program.

Natural roduct chemistry focuses on the study of bioactive substances derived from organisms with a view toward discovering new templates for modern drugs. A current resurgence of interest has occurred in this field. Among the various areas of study in this discipline are ethnobotany, the isolation and characterization of active agents from their sources, the development of analytical procedures for characterizing them, medicinal plant tissue culture, research on nutraceuticals and marine and microbial organism research.

Students that complete their graduate program receive an excellent background, not only in their area of specialization, but also in the general field of chemistry. As a result our graduates are much in demand and all of our students have been employed either directly upon graduation, or shortly thereafter.