Scholars in Macau University of Science and Technology Published Paper in the World-leading Academic Journal

news141229On 19th Dec, 2014, Assistant Professor Elaine Lai-Han Leung, Assistant Professor Vincent Kam-Wai Wong, Professor Zhi-Hong Jiang, Assistant Professor Ting Li and Chair Professor Liang Liu (corresponding author) from the State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, Macau University of Science and Technology (SKL-MUST) published their academic paper in the world's top academic journal "Science". The paper titled "Integrated network-based medicine: The role of traditional Chinese medicine in developing a new generation of medicine", has first proposed the concept of “Integrated Network-based Medicine (INBM)" and detailed its basic framework, and also stated that traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) will be the cornerstone and play a key role in the development of new generation of INBM.

The paper defined the concept of health in TCM which refers to the harmony and balance during the interaction of the body’s internal physiological network with the external environment, while an imbalanced interaction between the body’s network and the external environment can lead to the occurrence and development of complex diseases. Therefore, these complex diseases must be cured based on the holistic treatment on multiple networks to restore the harmony and the balance. Todays, the mainstream research method of the conventional medicine still relies on the “Reductionist Approach” or the "Target-based Biomedicine (TBBM)", with obvious limitations, or even sometimes not only creating misunderstanding and confusion to the interaction of the body and the external environmental network, but also leading to a series of inappropriate methods and medications for disease control. On the other hand, treatment and diagnosis of TCM are based on its unique holistic medical theory and network-based modulatory mode, which can help to overcome the weaknesses and limitations of “Reductionist Approach” and “TBBM”, thus it can provide the framework and reference for the development of the new INBM system. This new medical system should take the core and scientific foundations of TCM into reference, based on the TCM holistic and network-based therapeutic modulatory principles, together with the integration of Personalized Medicine and Digitalized Medicine, so as to establish a new network-based modulatory mode for diseases prevention, diagnosis and treatment in the future. Although this new mode is going to be a massive changes and revolutionary challenge to the current TBBM, the new mode is tremendously important for increasing the effectiveness of prevention and treatment of chronic and complex diseases. Using the innovative research methods and cutting-edge technology in Translational Research, Systems Biology and Computational Technology, vast amounts of scientific data (Big Data) can be obtained from Personalized Medicine, Digitalized Medicine and TCM, finally the integrated networks association can be established to create a new generation of INBM theories and strategic treatment models.

The authors have used their own research works as examples, explaining how to use variety of cutting-edge technologies to investigate the TCM Pattern Differentiation Theory and the “three M’s” foundation of Chinese herbal medicines (CHMs). The authors pointed out that the multi-chemical components nature of CHMs and Chinese herbal formulas (CHFs) will result in “multi-pharmacological effects” via acting on “multi-action targets and pathways” of the body, which is particularly suitable to correct the imbalance of individual patients with multi-target, multi-organ and multi-network imbalance, producing an overall promising holistic treatment result. Applying multi-disciplinary technologies from systems biology and computational technology to investigate the intervention characteristics and the molecular network of “three M’s” of CHMs is able to build network-based therapeutic strategies and methods with highly optimized protocols. By utilizing their previous research results regarding anti-inflammation and anti-cancer effects of ginsenosides, saikosaponin d, pseudolaric acid B and shikonin as well as the synergistic effect by combined-used of dexamethasone (Western medicine, a sterol) with a component derived from a CHM to overcome dexamethasone-induced thymus shrinkage as examples, the authors have illustrated the network-based modulatory effects exerted by multi-chemical components of CHMs on multi-targets and multi-pathways. Therefore, supportively, by using multiple herbal ingredients for jointly network-based intervention would become a new therapeutic strategy for systematic and complicated diseases. Prospectively, the authors believe that the shifting from TBBM to INBM will face many obstacles and difficulties. For example, how can we elucidate functions and interactions of over thousands of biomolecules in the body? How can we understand the integrated network-based regulatory effects by CHMs and CHFs and also their molecular mechanisms? To answer these questions requires the accumulation of large amounts of Big Data and suitable ways of digitization of the conventional medicine and TCM. Nevertheless, by the convergence of the ancient wisdom of TCM, we will be able to build a new blueprint for the development of a better kind of the INBM.

Based on the theme "Originated from the Tradition, Refined from the Tradition; Base on the Clinic, Return to the Clinic" as a research strategy, the research team in SKL-MUST has in-depth investigated the characteristics and advantages of TCM. With the aim to promote the academic value of TCM, refined from the differences between Chinese and Western medicine, they have discovered a number of potential contributory roles of TCM to the modern medical development. The results of their research have been published in a series of world-leading scientific journals. Particularly, in December, 2011, the team published a breakthrough paper titled “The clinical trial barriers”, which presented a new model of Personalized Randomized Controlled Trials (PRCT), and has been used by the medical society world-wide.

Source of information: Science magazine: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/346/6216/1569.4.summary