1st Annual Conference of the American Council for Medicinally Active Plants (ACMAP) July 20-23, 2010. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. New Brunswick, NJ. Program  Abstracts     The American Council for Medicinally Active Plants (ACMAP) has as its mission to promote and foster research, education, development, production, and conservation of medicinal, aromatic and other bioactive plants useful to human health. The American Council for Medicinally Active Plants Inc. was  established in March, 2007 when a group of interested scientists met in Warner Robins, GA, following the 1st International Symposia on Medicinal and Nutraceutical Plants of the International Society of Horticulture (ISH)  meet to discuss their mutual scientific interests in natural plant products and sought to develop a forum of like-minded scientists bonded together by their interest in natural products. ACMAP functioned as an informal consortium of researchers to coordinate scientific research expertise on medicinal and aromatic plants (MAP) at educational, governmental, and private institutions to maximize the impact and visibility of scientific investigations on MAP and their bioactive components relative to human, animal and plant health. In July, 2009 at the American Society of Horticultural Science Annual meeting in St. Louis, MO,   12 founding members decided to formalize this new organization and established  ACMAP  as a scientific council.  This is the first meeting of ACMAP and GIBEX is delighted along with other Rutgers-based international programs focused on natural products such as ASNAPP (www.asnapp.org) and the Partnerships in Food Industry Development for Natural Products (www.pfidnp.org) to support and promote a scientific approach to the global commercialization of natural products in an ethical, sustainable and truly collaborative manner. For further information, contact Dr. Slavik Dushenkov (dushenkov@aesop.rutgers.edu) or Prof. Jim Simon (jimsimon@aesop.rutgers.edu; jesimon123@hotmail.com), the Program Chair and Host, and Associate Director-GIBEX for Sustainable Development.