eIMBL Unit Labs
 
Faculty Members
 

DNA Replication
Systems Biology
Genomic Medicine
Molecular Oriental Medicine
Infectious Disease


Molecular Oriental Medicine


1. Introduction

The eIMBL unit lab of Molecular Biology of Oriental Herbal Medicines (MOM) is to develop new and innovative therapeutics, nutraceuticals and drugs through molecular biological studies of traditional herbal medicines. As a unique and innovative approach to the development of new therapeutics, MOM Unit Lab aims at changing the paradigm of drug development; creating the new trend of drug development; and expediting the speed of new drug development.


2. Background

The Far East Asian region (China, Japan, Korea) has a long-standing history of using self-developed sophisticated medicines, which have undergone distinctive evolution as compared to Western medicines. With traditional eastern medicine extensively using herbs, traditional eastern medicine is both integrative and individualized in essence. However, most of the products have not yet been investigated and could not enter into the mainstream market. Therefore, we find great opportunities for developing new and innovative bioactive materials from this integrative medicine.


3. Unique Features of MOM

Fusion of modern sciences and traditional knowledge rooted deeply in Eastern philosophy Possibility of obtaining valuable IPs on unique therapeutics from traditional herbal medicines High possibility of developing new concept therapeutics Unique and innovative approach to drug screening and discovery


4. Unique and Innovative Approach of MOM





The upper part of the slide shows the general way of approach to develop new drug. It started with the understanding of the pathogenesis of a target disease. By using mechanism-based high throughput screening process, usually thousands hits are developed into hundreds of lead compound, eventually to a one or two drug for preclinical and clinical trials.

But MOM's unique approach is just the opposite way. In this case, once a target disease is chosen, we started with one or two candidates with known efficacy and safety based on traditional medicine. Then we confirm bioactivities in vitro and in vivo, after that, we figure out the working mechanism and the active compounds followed by pre-clinical and clinical trials.


5. Members
Inst. of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Dr. Zuxun Gong (China)
Homepage: http://www.sibcb.ac.cn/PI.asp?id=61

Inst. of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Dr. Jian-Guo Geng (China)
Homepage: http://www.med.umn.edu/hot/faculty/geng/home.html

Inst. of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Dr. Jianxun_Song (China)
Homepage:

Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, Dr. Ken-ichi Arai (Japan)
Homepage: http://www.biotec.or.th/biotechnology-en/board-Ken-ichi-Arai.asp

Academia Sinica, Dr. Michael Lai (Taiwan)
Homepage: http://www.genomics.sinica.edu.tw/index.php?t=13&article_id=43

BIOTEC, Dr. Morakot Tanticharoen (Thailand)
Homepage: http://www.biotec.or.th/biotechnology-en/executives-morakot.asp

University of Tokyo, Dr. Hiroyuki Aburatani (Japan)
Homepage: http://www2.genome.rcast.u-tokyo.ac.jp/egl/introduction_e.html

Seoul National Univ., Dr. Sunyoung Kim (Korea)
Homepage: http://plaza.snu.ac.kr/~sunyoung/new/main.php