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China Spearheading Modernization of Chinese Medicine
Through The Herbalome Project
Chinese medicine has nurtured and maintained the health of Chinese people for over five thousand years. It is also one of the cultural heritages that are treasured by the whole world. However, the constituents of herbal preparations are extremely complicated. Also the uneven efficacy and uncertain functional mechanism have attracted skepticism worldwide. Given the grave concern over drug efficacy and safety, the modernization and internationalization of Chinese medicine will be even more challenging than ever before.
An article in “Science” (Vol. 319, 8 February 2008) titled “Lifting the Veil on Traditional Chinese Medicine” reported the developments triggered by the “Herbalome Project” – the latest attempt to modernize traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).
The Herbalome Project was initiated by Professor Liang Xinmiao of Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP). In his project proposal, Professor Liang pointed out that Chinese medicine is a complex system with substantial scientific content. But the exact way it works is still to be investigated. Faced with such complexity, new methodologies must be invented to generate the needed scientific evidence. By identifying the active compounds of each CM formulation and ensuring the quality and safety, Herbalome intends to take modernization of Chinese medicine to a whole new level for recognition by the international society.
Herbalome will use high-throughput screening, toxicity testing and clinical trials to identify active compounds and toxic contaminants. Initial targets are cancer, liver and kidney diseases and illnesses that are difficult for Western medicine to treat, such as diabetes and depression. Several TCM major players have expressed intense interest in this project. “It’s right time to start this project,” says chemist Chen Kai-xian, president of the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Director of Shanghai Innovative Research Center of Traditional Chinese Medicine Hui Yongzheng concurred that Herbalome should appeal to pharmaceutical firms as it could identify scores of drug candidates. Nevertheless, Herbalome has potential pitfalls. One is a concern that Western companies will develop blockbuster drugs by modifying compounds identified by the project. To prevent this from happening, the research team will take all necessary measures to protect the intellectual properties.
Chinese researchers successfully extracted Qinghaosu from Chinese medicine in the 1970s, a compound whose derivatives are potent antimalaria drugs, according to Science. Currently there are as many as 400,000 TCM concoctions using 10,000 herbs. Although in major cities Western medicine is the dominant form of medication or treatment, many rural Chinese still depends on TCM, in part because Western medicines are too expensive for them. However, the unstable efficacy and adverse effects of toxic substance lead to criticisms that TCM is out-moded. Some sceptics even call the Herbalome Project “a waste of research funds”. Proponents, on the other hand, insisted that TCM has much to offer. For every claimed TCM success, there are reports of adverse effects from natural toxins and contaminants such as pesticides. Quality control is therefore paramount in the modernization of TCM.
The Herbalome Academic Seminar was held in Eastern Forum of Science and Technology on 28 October 2007 in Shanghai. Participants included CM researchers and experts from Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine (SATCM), Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), Xiangshan Science Conference, DICP, Shanghai Iinstitute of Materia Medica, leading universities in the Mainland, Hong Kong Jockey Club Institute of Chinese Medicine, University of Macau etc.
Professor Liang remarked in the seminar that Herbalome will initially select 30 preparations and 300 Materia Medica for high-throughput screening and characterization in the next 5 years. The project also aims to construct a library of herb substance resources.
Led by Professor Liang, the research team at DICP won a $5 million start-up grant from MOST to develop purification methods. The 45-person team will develop new separation media and parse herbs into “multi-components”: groups of similar constituents. To determine which substances are beneficial or toxic, the team plans to devise Herbalome chips in which arrays of compounds are screened for their binding to key peptides. The expanded Herbalome project will involve researchers at multi institutes in China and abroad.
Sources
- Lifting the Veil on Traditional Chinese Medicine by Richard Stone, “Science” Vol. 319 No. 5864, pp 709-710
- People’s Daily Online www.people.com.cn
- ScienceNet.cn www.sciencenet.cn/
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