A gigantic database of
traditional
Chinese medicine (TCM), covering almost all domestically
registered herbs and recipes, has basically been completed, marking
one of the world's most comprehensive and advanced collections of
information on Chinese herbs.
The database, known as "TCMinformatics," contains most domestically
publicized information about herbs and recipes.
It
covers more than 1,400 diseases and their symptoms, over 150,000
traditional Chinese medicinal recipes, detailed information on
9,000 kinds of herbs, including their shape, taste and production
areas, and medical functions, according to the Shanghai Traditional
Chinese Medicine Innovation Center -- the database's founder.
Fu
Yuezhong, the center's vice-director, said the database, which
utilizes advanced information technology, effectively combines
"enormous but rather sporadic" data about traditional Chinese
medicine and will help further scientific study in the field.
In
addition, the catalogue features an exclusive sub-database of
microscopic ingredients found in the herbs.
According to Fu, the database can detail the main chemical elements
in each herb and help the microscopic study of traditional Chinese
medicine.
The database aims to explain Chinese herbs' "mysterious" functions,
as well as to assist with the invention of new drugs, medical
experts said.
Fu
said the database helps tell how traditional Chinese medicines,
with their chemical elements unveiled, work in line with Western
medical theories, further promoting the use of Chinese herbs in the
international community.
The database founders, including the main fund provider -- the
Ministry of Science and Technology -- have approved cooperation
with United States-based PhytoCeutica, a medical
company at Yale University, to carry out further microscopic
studies on traditional Chinese medicine.
The database, initiated in 2000 with millions of yuan of financial
support from central and local scientific and technological
authorities, is now seeking further commercial cooperation with
pharmaceutical businesses to develop new drugs, either western
pills or traditional Chinese recipes.
The database is housed at the city's Zhangjiang
High-Tech Park -- a key national medicine research and
manufacturing base for over 90 pharmaceutical companies from home
and abroad.
Hui Yongzheng, director with the center and former vice-minister of
science and technology, said the country's pharmaceutical sector
needs to combine western medical know-how, especially promising
biotechnology, with traditional Chinese medicine to create new
drugs and obtain their intellectual property rights.
Hui, said biotechnology, extensively used in the pharmaceutical
industry and medical diagnosis, can also modernize and
industrialize traditional Chinese medicine.
Hui encourages more domestic and overseas pharmaceutical businesses
to study traditional Chinese medicine using modern technology and
the center's database.
"There is a global tendency of replacing chemical medicine products
with biotech and natural drugs," Hui said.
The composition of traditional Chinese medicine, made mainly from
natural herbs, can be pinpointed by modern biotechnology.
Biotechnology can help improve the impact of the herbs and mass
produce more and cheaper biotech medical substitutes, according to
Hui.
(China
Daily October 10, 2002)