Mar. 13, 2013 Scientists are reporting an advance toward
overcoming a major barrier to tapping the potential of
traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and India's Ayurvedic
medicine in developing new and more effective modern drugs.
Their report appears in ACS' Journal of Chemical Information and
Modeling. Andreas Bender and colleagues explain that TCM has
made key contributions to modern medicine. In the world's
largest international clinical trial, for instance, scientists
concluded that Artesunate, a derivative of the Chinese herb
qinghao, should replace quinine as a treatment for severe
malaria in both adults and children worldwide. Traditional
medicines have a track record in benefiting human health that
spans thousands of years. However, gaps in knowledge about how
these medicines work in the body, their "mode of action" (MOA)
-- limit their use today. Information about a drug's MOA is
important for better understanding of both the beneficial
effects and side effects of treatments. They describe an
algorith