Natural products have always been an essential part of the healthcare system. Historically these natural products have been proven to be the key component of drug discovery. Many scientists globally contribute extensively to this research. One of the leading women scientists whose first love was always exploring chemistry, biology, and metabolism of phytoactive from unexplored biological sources such as mushrooms, fungi, and plants. She is also known as a ‘Propolis expert’ in the scientific fraternity. In the current write up we are going to look at how her passion and incredible consistency in the research led to many path-breaking outcomes and opened a new era of research in propolis and natural product research.

Her special interest is dedicated to the bee product propolis (bee glue): its standardization, chemistry, analysis, screening pharmacological potential and exploring health-promoting benefits. She and her group have been studying propolis for over 20 years, have made major contributions to the current knowledge of propolis, and have published over 90 papers in international peer-reviewed journals and four book chapters on this topic. She has more than 200 research publications to her credit. The extensive research by Prof. Vassya Bankova and her team on propolis made researchers across the globe learn about the facts and values of this wonder bee product, ’propolis’. She was a founding member and the first President of the Bulgarian Phytochemical Society.

She has been recognized and appreciated by many international and national authorities for her contribution to propolis research. She is one of the leading scientists who has been working for sustainable utilization of bioresources and waste from medicinal and aromatic plants from Bulgaria for innovative bioactive products, supported by the EU and Bulgarian governments.

She is working with many peer-review journals in various capacities, to bring out the best in terms of scientific literature for budding researchers across the globe. She was on the editorial board of Chemistry Central Journal as a Section Editor of the Organic Chemistry section, the journal now known as BMC Chemistry, where she is a Senior Editorial Board Member and on the Editorial Advisory Board of Natural Product Communications. In 2015 she was elected to a corresponding member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

Currently, she is working with a journal, ‘Molecules’ as a special issue editor, and focusing on publishing a special issue about Special Issue “Propolis in Human and Bee Health”. She was elected a Member of Academia Europaea in 2021.