The Department of Pharmacognosy was established in 1972 and is established in the School of Pharmacy, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. With more than 46 years experiences, the department of pharmacognosy has so far educated more than 22 Ph.D. graduates in the field of pharmacognosy. The mission of department has been defined to research and progress in the science of bioactive natural substances found in plants and animals, from terrestrial to the marine sources. Department is involved in research in the area of discovery and development of herbal drugs, phytochemistry and investigation of natural therapeutic agents from medicinal plants through cooperation by other scientific departments such as botany, chemistry, and pharmacology.
In the Pharm.D courses, all students are required to pass 16 core and noncore credits in the Department of Pharmacognosy. In the graduate (PhD) level, training Ph.D. students began in 1989 and they are required to pass about 20 theoretical-practical core credits, 16 noncore credits and about 22 credits for conducting dissertation. While PharmD. graduates are mostly involved in pharmacies, PhD graduates are often will be joined to pharmacy schools, educational and research centers, pharmaceutical industries and related organizations. The graduate program is dedicated to the training of expert scientists in the field of phytochemistry and natural product sciences aims to contribute to the multidisciplinary drug research and development from natural rich sources of flora in Iran. Faculty members of the department are conducting research in different fields of natural products and doing their best to train students according to state-of-the-art scientific information and high-quality criteria.

The main objectives of the department are as follows:
•  Teaching natural product science to students to have qualified pharmacist
•  Preparing qualified Ph.D. graduates to be successful researchers, university members , and executive agents in the Ministry of Health
•  Conducting research on extraction, isolation and purification of bioactive natural compounds and optimization of all related procedures
•  Conducting research for the discovery of natural components helping in treatment of special diseases such as cancer, leishmaniasis, malaria, inflammatory and cardiovascular disorders, etc.
•  Defining quality control methods for standardizing products with desirable safety and efficacy
•  Doing biological assays of natural products
•  Economical studies about the herbal medicine industry
•  Management and industrial policy in herbal medicine
•  Designing the processes to produce herbal and natural medicine

Laboratories
Two well-equipped standard laboratories and a Herbarium, are located in the department, for medicinal plant authentication and conservation.