The traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) ZHENG, also known as TCM syndrome, is an integral and essential part of the TCM theory. A TCM syndrome, or ZHENG, is in essence a characteristic profile of all clinical manifestations that can be identified by a TCM practitioner. Clinical treatments of a patient rely on the successful differentiation of a specific TCM syndrome. Recent advances in systems biology and medicine have allowed the application of new profiling technologies in the study of the ZHENG differentiation and its biological interpretation. Understanding of the characteristic changes in biochemistry associated with a specific TCM ZHENG will facilitate the development of ZHENG identification, a novel disease diagnostic, and stratification approach that will potentially lead to personalized healthcare strategies for a range of diseases that lack therapeutic solutions.

We invite investigators to contribute original research articles as well as review articles that will stimulate the continuing efforts to achieve improved clinical diagnosis, patient stratification, and personalized treatment by means of the ZHENG differentiation concept and approach. The information obtained from these studies shall be clearly evidence based. We are particularly interested in articles describing the new modalities for clinical characterization of ZHENG, measuring outcomes, and data mining from those personalized clinical trials; advances in molecular genetics and biologic diagnosis of ZHENG; new insights into ZHENG classification using genes, proteins, metabolites, and their profiles; systems strategies in ZHENG classification and treatment evaluation using the methods of gene polymorphism, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabonomics, metagenomics, and bioinformatics. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Concept and development of ZHENG
• Recent advances in ZHENG identification and its clinical applications
• Latest technologies for ZHENG identification and outcome measurement
• Role of genotypes in ZHENG classification and treatment evaluation
• ZHENG classification and treatment evaluation by systematic-omics methods such as transcriptomics, proteomics, metabonomics, and metagenomics
• Data mining, bioinformatics, and network pharmacology for ZHENG classification and treatment evaluation
• Recent advances in evaluating therapeutic effects following ZHENG identification
• ZHENG animal model and application

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