Professor Yukihiro Shoyama was born in 1943. He received his Ph.D. degree from Kyushu University and worked as a post-doc in Massachusetts General Hospital (1975). He worked as an assistant professor (1968), associate professor (1978) and full professor, director of Pharmacognosy, director of medicinal plant garden (1991), and also managed as deanship (2004) in Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science, Kyushu University. He moved to Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science, Nagasaki International University and worked as the president of Japanese Society of Pharmacognosy (2007). His work started with a project on marihuana including isolation and structure elucidation of cannabinoids, biosynthetic pathway of cannabinoids, purification of biosynthetic enzymes and cloning-expression of biosynthetic enzyme, and elucidation of stereostructure of THCAsynthase by x-ray analysis. His field of interest also covers preparation and application of monoclonal antibodies against natural products like ginsenosides and glycyrrhizin, and pharmacologically active natural products like crocin in saffron.