ASOMPS is the abbreviation for Asian Symposium on Medicinal Plants, Spices and Other Natural Products, which is a series of scientific conferences held in Asia at different locations.

The original title was Asian Symposium on Medicinal Plants and Spices and was modified as Asian Symposium on Medicinal Plants, Spices and Other Natural Products from the 7th meeting in 1992 in Manila, Philippines. The acronym ASOMPS was first introduced in the 4th symposium in 1980 in Bangkok, Thailand.

The First Asian Symposium on Medicinal Plants and Species (ASOMPS I) was held in Peshawar, Pakistan in 1960 with the aim of strengthening regional research potential and improving infrastructures in the Asian region. ASOMPS promotes collaboration and co-operation between Asian scientists in the fields of chemistry, pharmacology, pharmacy, biochemistry, botany, and biotechnology and their research on natural products.

Similar to the Botany 2000 program, later on, all ASOMPS meetings were organized under the auspices of UNESCO, as a basic science program, to contribute to the strengthening of substantial financial assistance obtained from UNESCO head office through the country participation of the respective host countries.

Humayun Ahmed (Bengali: হুমায়ূন আহমেদ) (born November 13, 1948) is a Bangladeshi author, dramatist and film director. Ahmed emerged in the Bengali literary world in the early 1970s and over the subsequent decade became the most popular fiction writer of the country. His breakthrough occurred with the help of Ahmed Sofa and the publication of his first novel, Nondito Noroké in 1972. He is also a former associate professor of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Notably, as of February 2004, Ahmed continued to top the best seller list of a Bangla Academy (Bangladesh) book fair, a feat that had been maintained over the previous two decades.

In 2012 Humayun Ahmed was appointed as a special advisor to the Bangladesh Mission in the United Nations.

As a writer, Ahmed often displays a fascination for creating stories around supernatural events; his style is characterized as magic realism.

Humayun Ahmed was born in Kutubpur, in Netrokona,East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh). His father, Foyzur Rahman Ahmed, a police officer and writer, was killed by Pakistani military force during the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971. His mother is Ayesha Foyez. Humayun's younger brother, Muhammed Zafar Iqbal, a university professor, is also a writer of mostly science fiction genre and a newspaper columnist. Another brother, Ahsan Habib, is a painter and the editor of Unmad, a cartoon magazine. Ahmed was married to Gultekin, granddaughter of Principal Ibrahim Khan, in 1973. The couple got divorced in 2003. Ahmed later married his long time affair, a TV actress, Meher Afroz Shaon; who was friend of his 2nd daughter, Shila.