As part of series of celebration events for the 24^th Anniversary of the Macau University of Science and Technology (M.U.S.T.), a Great Master of Science and Technology Lecture Series titled “Dose-effect of Formula” was held at Hall N101 at M.U.S.T. on March 27^th, 2024.

Professor Tong Xiaolin, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences,internal Chinese medicine specialist, director of the National Center for Integrative Medicine, and Honorary Doctorate in Medicine of M.U.S.T. was invited to present this lecture. Vice President of M.U.S.T., Chair Prof. Jiang Zhihong welcomed and thanked Professor Tong Xiaolin for the keynote presentation to our students and teachers.

Professor Tong Xiaolin

Attended guests including Director of the Health Bureau of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) Government, Mr. Lo Iek Long, Head of the Higher Education Cooperation and Exchange Department of the Education and Youth Development Bureau, Mr. Tam Sio Wa, Chinese Medicine Practitioner from the Pharmaceutical Supervision and Administration Bureau, Ms. Chan Chi Teng, Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Traditional Medicine (Macao), Ms. Mo Hui, representatives from mainland universities, banks, hotels, enterprises and associations, Associate Vice President of M.U.S.T. Chair Prof. Zhu Yizhun, members of the University Council and University Advisory Committees, representatives from different institutes and faculties, as well as students and teachers attended the lecture.

Vice President Jiang Zhihong(right) Presentes a Souvenir to Professor Tong Xiaolin(left)

Professor Tong highlighted that the dosage theory of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has all along been lacking in thorough and systematic research methods. There is still no scientific support or theoretical basis for clinical dosage selection and safety. Therefore, comprehensively exploring the original dosage of TCM prescriptions, expanding the existing dosage threshold and sound scientific dosage theory will be the essential research directions to improve the clinical efficacy and mechanism of TCM.

Professor Tong uses “seeking truth through dosage efficacy” as a major theme to tackle issues such as how to achieve the goal of maintaining the authenticity of TCM, creating new medical discoveries and carrying out in-depth discussions on the problematic and misguided inheritance dosage prescriptions of TCM, such theme was able to resolve years of troubling study issues of prescriptions and demonstrated the groundbreaking in aspect to prescription research efforts and team progress.

Using this theme as a baseline while improving the clinical efficacy of TCM, the team had established practical guidelines for the use of prescription dosage in clinical practice and put forward a new concept of classifying and applying dosage, forming the strategy for the clinical application of prescription dosage (expert consensus), and setting up a new model of “rationale, methodology, prescription, medication and dosage” in TCM through a multi-angle evidence-based study of Zhang Zhongjing's prescription.

Professor Tong focuses intensively on increasing the efficacy of TCM to provide effective diabetes treatment which was incorporated into domestic and international TCM guidelines. By constructing the theory of prescription dosage, the efficacy of acute and critical illnesses has been dramatically improved, exploring new theories in the study of drug indications, promoting the transformation of classical prescriptions into new drugs, clarifying the relationship among dosage, effect and toxicity, optimizing the dosage recommendation range of Chinese Pharmacopoeia, thus laying an essential foundation for the development of traditional Chinese medicine towards the era of quantification.

Group Photo

During Q&A session, participants were actively interacting by raising questions on topics such as “how to leverage modern biotechnology in the determination of herbal medicine dosage”, “views on the application prospects of artificial intelligence and large-scale language models in traditional Chinese medicine”, and “how to perceive the role of the same medicinal herb with different medicinal specifications in clinical treatment”. Professor Tong provided detailed and professional views to these questions. Teachers and students expressed that they greatly benefited from the master lecture and gained valuable insights.

This lecture was simultaneously live-streamed on online platforms.