ICBO_2018_6: PHO: The Pharmacognosy Ontology

The discipline of pharmacognosy was named and defined in the early 19th century and consists primarily in the study of materia medica, or drugs. Its name, a derivation of the Greek pharmakon (medicine/drug) and ginosko (to know through experience) embraces a broad disciplinary range; current practice involves the investigation of natural products, the material produced by or derived from living organisms. It is a meta-discipline located at the frontiers of numerous sciences not limited to biology, chemistry, physics, and pharmacy. Pharmacognosy not only benefits from the technical and conceptual advances across these disciplines; it endows them with new study subjects and furnishes them with new tools and approaches. However, pharmacognosy has yet to articulate the diversity of its practices and procedures in a systematic, well-defined and logical manner, in suach a way as to participate in the lingua franca that ontologies can provide. Through the creation of a Pharmacognosy Ontology, we hope to contribute to this goal and consolidate the existing bridges between pharmacognosy and the many disciplines it is interacting with and thus contribute to a more profound understanding of the natural world.