Dr. Lena Springer, Qiao-Feng Chen

The history of treatments for diseases by Chinese "Traditional Chinese medicine" (TCM) drugs is very long. Compared with Euro-centred "western" biomedical drugs, the multiple chemical components of TCM drugs are complex; and multiple targets just as molecular mechanisms are not clear. The drugs’ pharmaceutical actions have mainly been induced from documented experience. In recent years, the rise of the concept of multi-target drugs and advances in modernization of TCM drugs have accelerated research on the actions and mechanisms of TCM drugs. Our research will illustrate the effects of TCM drugs on diseases through the acquisition of information on the active ingredients of TCM drugs, through identification of the pharmaceutical materials’ targets, and through our mapping of the regulated metabolic and our determination of disease pathways modified and controlled by the TCM drugs.