DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In recent years, there have been literally hundreds of published articles evaluating the medicinal properties of African herbs. In the majority of these reports, botanical leads were identified from their use by TAM practitioners. Bioresources Development and Conservation Programme (BDCP) and Pro-Cultura are co-organizing and facilitating the meeting, Evidence of African Herbal Medicines for Infectious & Chronic Diseases a program tract within the international conference, African Healing Wisdom: From Tradition to Current Applications & Research. The overall goal of the conference is to explore the uniqueness, wealth and complexity of African traditional medicines, and their potential role in addressing some of the crucial health challenges of our times. The conference is hosted by Procultura and will be held at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill, Washington DC, USA, and February 23 - 26, 2005. The conference will bring together health professionals; international health, development, humanitarian and funding agencies; as well as governmental and non-governmental health-related organizations interested in the integration of health care modalities; research; CAM; cultural competency in health care, and health equity; environmental conservation and sustainability. The program Evidence of African Herbal Medicines for Infectious & Chronic Diseases will specifically target scientist, clinical researchers, industry and academia for a scientific discussion on African traditional medicine in the context of the treatment of modern disease. The specific aim of the program is to provide a forum for an inter-disciplinary discussion on traditional African medicine and ethnomedicinal approaches to developing treatments for infectious and chronic diseases as well as the ethical and policy issues, and standardization issues involved with this type of research.