Briefs

2008 AUG 1 - (NewsRx.com) -- New investigation results, 'Data mining for chinese material medica and pharmacological research,' are detailed in a study published in Journal of Biomolecular Screening. "Chinese materia medica (CMM) is becoming increasingly important in modern health care, with the potential for new or improved clinical protocols and reduction in treatment costs. Conventional approaches to drug discovery are based on knowledge of biological systems and screen phenotypes in the context of a whole organism," scientists in Hong Kong report.

"It will be valuable to identify the CMM that would induce certain biological responses (such as angiogenesis). The authors have developed a database that they plan to commercialize that contains traditional knowledge of Chinese medicine and pharmacology along with their own experimental data from controlled scientific observations by using the zebrafish as a model of CMM-induced pathology. The database is visualized and functions via the World Wide Web by subscription or license. The authors have also written software for personal digital assistant (PDA) devices that supports multiple users performing screening experiments worldwide," wrote H.Y. Tse and colleagues, City University of Hong Kong.

The researchers concluded: "This provides a platform for the study of CMM, and data mining of this resource will help evaluate CMM in the context of experimental observations of biological aberrations."

Tse and colleagues published their study in the Journal of Biomolecular Screening (Data mining for chinese materia medica and pharmacological research. Journal of Biomolecular Screening, 2008;13(5):390-5).

For more information, contact H.Y. Tse, City University of Hong Kong, Dept. of Biology and Chemistry, Hong Kong.

This article was prepared by Drug Week editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2008, Drug Week via NewsRx.com.