Sustainable model being sought from traditional medicines

The database, known as Chem-TCM, will be used to help with drug development, according to researchers from the Institute of Pharmaceutical Science at King's College London and partners at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica. 

Part-funded by Innovation China UK, the database features the same 12,000 chemicals found in plants used in Chinese medicine by the three previous China state surveys. The King’s researchers analyzed patterns in the known and predicted biological activities of these chemicals from over 300 Chinese herbs in relation to their usage in traditional Chinese medicine. Their results reveal that many categories in Chinese medicine are translatable into Western terminology.

“Traditional Chinese medicine has undergone a remarkable renaissance in recent years. However, the unique language used to describe categories of medicines has hindered effective understanding of one of the most developed and mature systems of alternative medicine in existence,” co-research head Dr David Barlow said in a statement. 

Last year the International Classification of Traditional Medicine was announced by the World Health Organisation.