Scientists pin down active chemicals in Chinese herb
By Contributor
By Yojana Sharma, Science and Development Network
Researchers are aiming to bridge the gap between Chinese and Western systems of medicine with what they say is the first database of chemical compounds found in herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine.
The database, known as Chem-TCM, will be used to help with drug development, according to researchers from the Institute of Pharmaceutical Science at King’s College London, United Kingdom, and partners at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, China, who launched it this month (Oct. 18).
The database features more than 12,000 chemical compounds identified in more than 300 Chinese herbs, and can be searched using text searches, but also using chemical terms.
“You can even draw a picture of a chemical structure on a computer screen and the database will search for matching molecular structures and activities,” said David Barlow, an expert in computer-aided drug design and delivery systems at King’s College London.
Although botanical databases on traditional medicine already exist, Barlow said this database is geared “towards identifying known activities of the chemicals in Chinese medicines” and predicting activities of similar compounds.
It includes botanical and chemical information, predicted activity of the chemicals against known Western therapeutic targets and available data on toxicology of those compounds.
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