Medical Arthropodology

Medical arthropodology (including medical entomology, medical acariology and medical myriapodology etc.) is an incredibly exciting discipline which constitutes an integral part of public health, biomedical and bioengineering sciences. The Phylum Arthropoda bears within its folds the largest number of species (and individuals) under single specific group of animals that impact human lives either by acting as the vectors for a large number of deadly or debilitating diseases or as the pest causing discomfort through their bite and sting, on one hand, and offers an unfathomable source of novel biomedical and bioengineering products remaining, amazingly enough, unexplored yet a very great deal, on the other. This concept of medical arthropodology, arthropods of medical arthropods, as the core contributor to public/veterinary health, biomedicine and bio-engineering is novel and presented through SOCIETY OF MEDICAL ARTHROPODOLOGY (SOMA) for the first time to meet with global needs, particularly India where the science of medical arthropodology, once a flourishing discipline, in limited areas though, is still emerging. Worldwide medical arthropodology has so far been understood to deal with only the harmful aspects of arthropod life in public and veterinary health, albeit their being infinitely beneficial directly or indirectly in enhancing quality human life; the latter part had been particularly obscured in university post-graduate and medical college teaching and research, and needed a renewed focus from both biomedicine and pharmacological as well as bioengineering and nutrition points of view which make our life interdependent with arthropods as a major group to focus on, comprehending their unique supremacy in time and space that makes arthropods so special a source!

The SOCIETY OF MEDICAL ARTHROPODOLOGY (SOMA) is a unique scientific association devoted to the enhancement of knowledge in totality about their biomedical, pharmacological, bioengineering and nutrition aspects to bring under one single umbrella all the possible public/veterinary health and biomedical significance of arthropods.

"I wish the SOMA a great and fruitful future in the service of public and veterinary health through collective endeavours: “Individual brilliance is indispensable for making a great leader, but it’s the teamwork which brings the greatest impact and success."