Quality Control on Herbal Medicine and its Application
1Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong
2Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA
3Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Jiangsu Province, China
4Hanshan Normal University, Guangdong, China
Quality Control on Herbal Medicine and its Application
Description
Herbal medicine is an invaluable and unique treasure which has been developed since the first civilization. Different from the commonly used synthetic drugs whose ingredient is mainly composed of a pure compound, the chemical complexity of herbal medicine formulation is usually sophisticated. The multivalent properties of herbal medicine are another outstanding characteristic over the modern synthetic drugs. However, the genuineness and quality control of herbal medicine are always in doubt. Together with the frequent reports of excessive amount of heavy metals and pesticides, the safety of herbal medicine is always under concern. Nonetheless, the efficacies of herbal medicine cannot usually be examined by modern analytical method. Still, we need more works to excavate this historical treasure but not smash them like clay pots.
All in all, the genuineness and quality control are always the first priority of herbal medicine. Modifications with modern scientific means are also essential for improving parameters such as bioavailability. Here, all authors are invited to contribute their current research outputs.
Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:
- The genuineness of herbal medicine
- Metabolomics of herbal medicine
- Advanced extraction methods and quality control on herbal medicine
- Clinical study on bioavailability of herbal medicine
- Innovative application of herbal medicine