Fuente: Society for Medicinal Plant and Natural Product Research Lugar: News Everybody looking back to this year´s GA Congress reports a joyful and buzzing atmosphere and a remarkable experience with inspiring talks by distinguished luminaries, excellent posters, and rich opportunities for networking and nice exchanges with colleagues. For this,  heartfelt thanks to the entire congress team led by the joint congress chairs Prof. Dr. Alessandra Braca and Prof. Dr. Nunziatina de Tommasi.
We ‘raise a glass’ to all involved there, and maybe it is best to do it with Champaign next year at the GA Congress in Reims.
Some numbers and statistics

Main Conference

Participants: 703, coming from 63 countries
Keynote Lectures: 13
Short lectures: 86
Posters: 558

Pre-congress workshops

Early Career Researchers (ECRW): 60 participants
African Research Network (ARN): 35 participants
Plants for Health – Herbal Medicines in Children: 30 participants
Sustainability: 58 participants

Pre-congress workshops
The pre-congress workshops were well-attended highlights, with a broad number of highly relevant topics.
Workshop on Sustainability
The pre-congress workshop on “Sustainable Botanical Ingredient Production in a World of Climate Change”, co-organized by GA, ABC, BAPP, SHI, and Euromed, brought together leading experts from academia, industry, and NGOs.
More than 70 participants joined the event, which featured high-quality presentations and engaged discussions in two interactive roundtables. Presentations and discussions focused on how climate change is affecting medicinal plant availability, adulteration, quality, and authenticity, and how sustainable and traceable sourcing practices can mitigate these challenges. The main outcomes emphasized the need for interdisciplinary collaborations, long-term research on climate impacts and phytochemistry, and the integration of sustainability into education and training. The workshop also reinforced the importance of evidence-based approaches and dialogue across the herbal value chain.
Key takeaways:

Climate change is a major challenge affecting the availability and quality of all botanicals.
Sustainable production and traceability are essential to maintain long-term supply chain viability.
Many people remain unaware or indifferent unless personally affected — stronger education and communication are needed.
A full summary will be published in HerbalGram, and the recording will be made available later.
The workshop received media coverage by Nikki Hancocks in NutraIngredients-Europe:

Time for action on botanical over-exploitation
Climate change, quality loss and adulteration: botanicals summit calls for sustainable supply chains



Participants commented on the timeliness of the Sustainability Workshop that was considered a very topical and well attended event, above every expectation.
Both the ECRW and the African Research network continued their trajectory of successful events, and the workshop on herbal medicines for children showcased future ways for the generation and extrapolation of evidence.
Workshop of the ARN
The African Research Network brought together scientists from Africa and beyond, to share and discuss recent advances in African natural products research.
Denzil Phillips’ keynote on “Industrialization and Commercialization of Herbal medicines in Africa” provided critical insights into scaling traditional medicine for global markets, addressing regulatory frameworks and sustainable supply chain development.
We had amazing research presentations from African scientists covering metabolomics, molecular networking, antimicrobial research, and ethnopharmacology. The hybrid format facilitated participation from researchers across Africa who presented and discussed their research work virtually.
The panel discussion “Herbal medicines – Made in Africa” emphasized the importance of sustainable commercialization strategies while respecting traditional knowledge holders.
The Key Note Lectures
At the main congress, the keynote lectures covered topics like:

Biodiversity
Fungi as medicine
Cutting edge technologies in natural product drug discovery, formulation and development
Bioinformatics and chemoinformatics in natural products
Essential oils
Clinical trials for herbal medicinal products
Chemistry and bioactivity of natural products (both from terrestrial and marine sources)

New: GA Pitch Slam
A new vey interesting element was a Pitch Slam, where 17 brief presentations were given by post docs, PhD-students and senior scientists. It aimed at connecting researchers in a focused format and at facilitating to network, especially between academia and industry.  Each presented a short and concise suggestion for collaboration based on recent research they had conducted.
‘Having taken this initiative from ideation to the  Pitch Slam stage, the event gave a voice to such innovative work carried out throughout this community. It has been an opportunity for collaboration and networking. We hope to grow it further at GA2026.’ said Dr Gaia Scalabrino chair of the GA Industry Group.
Some of the feedback collected:
‘Thanks for bringing the idea of sharing and connection with industries.’ ‘Thank you, it was really nice and a company gave me the card to contact them.’ ‘I thank you for such a wonderful opportunity. It was a very exciting moment, standing there and give a 3 minute speech to the community with full of experts. Thank you so much again for organizing the event and give us the chance to be a part of.’ ‘I really enjoyed attending. There was interesting research been presented.’
Round Table on NMR
Another very successful addition was a round table on ‘Revolutionizing Data Sharing Advances in Natural Products Research’ with 160 participants.
Naples – an amazing location
Of course, Naples is an amazing location and all attendants enjoyed the many opportunities around the conference venue, which has a direct view onto the Mediterranean Sea and the outlying island as well as the numerous highlights of the Mediterranean cuisines.
Opportunities for enjoying Mediterranean life offered also the conference dinner at the scenic Royal Palace of Portici, with delightful local cuisine and especially with excellent vegetarian specialties, offering opportunities to meet old friends and make new friends, and ending in an energizing disco evening, as it is tradition at GA.
A great congress
Altogether, the 73rd International Congress and Annual Meeting of the Society for Medicinal Plant and Natural Product Research (GA), jointly with Società Italiana di Fitochimica (SIF)  that was held  from August 31 – September 3, 2025 at the Royal Continental Hotel, Naples, Italy, was, after all the successful congresses of GA, again an unprecedented success.
Thanks to all again for making this possible, also to the many colleagues who peer reviewed abstract and helped with chairing and organizing all the session.
Looking forward
We continue our dynamic and exciting conference tradition since we picked it up again at the tail end of the pandemic, and are looking forward to the upcoming annual congresses:

2026: 74. GA Congress, Reims, France
2027: 75. GA Congress, Lisboa, Portugal
2028: Joint Congress, South Korea
2029: 77. GA Congress, Turkey

Contributing authors: Alessandra Braca, Michael Heinrich, Gaia Scalabrino, Cica Vissiennon, Olaf Kelber
Der Beitrag GA Naples 2025 – Viewback and Thanks erschien zuerst auf Society for Medicinal Plant and Natural Product Research (GA).