Global perspectives on poisonous plants: the 9th international symposium on poisonous plants

The 9th International Symposium on Poisonous Plants (ISOPP9) was held July 15-21, 2013, at the Inner Mongolia Agricultural University in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China. The symposium consisted of three days of oral and poster presentations, followed by a tour of the Xilinhot Region of the Mongolian Grasslands, encompassing grazing conditions consisting of desert, grassland, and steppes. This was the first time that an ISOPP meeting has been held in Asia and provided an opportunity for visitors from outside China to become aware of livestock poisonings caused by plant species with which they were previously not familiar while at the same time demonstrating that many of the problems experienced around the world have a common etiology. Presentations focused on botany, veterinary science, toxicology, mechanism of action, and chemistry. As is appropriate for the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, this cluster of papers consists of selected oral and poster presentations in which the chemistry of the toxins played a significant role. The symposium revealed that there is considerable scope for isolation, structural elucidation, and analysis of the toxins from the numerous poisonous plant species that have been identified in China. It became apparent that there are abundant opportunities for chemists both within China and abroad to collaborate with Chinese scientists working on biological aspects of livestock poisonings.