Network Pharmacology and Traditional Medicine


Book Description

This eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers Journals Series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author by contacting the Frontiers Editorial Office: frontiersin.org/about/contact.




Network Pharmacology


Book Description

This book introduces “network pharmacology” as an emerging frontier subject of systematic drug research in the era of artificial intelligence and big data. Network Pharmacology is an original subject of fusion system biology, bioinformatics, network science and other related disciplines. It emphasizes on starting from the overall perspective of the system level and biological networks, the analysis of the laws of molecular association between drugs and their treatment objects, reveals the systematic pharmacological mechanisms of drugs, and guides the research and development of new drugs and clinical diagnosis and treatment. After it was proposed, network pharmacology has been paid attention by researchers, and it has been rapidly developed and widely used. In order to systematically reveal the biological basis of diagnosis and treatment in traditional Chinese medicine and modern medicine, we proposed a new concept of "network target" for the first time, which has become the core theory of "network pharmacology". The core principle of a network target is to construct a biological network that can be used to decipher complex diseases. The network is then used as the therapeutic target, to which multicomponent remedies are applied. This book mainly includes four parts: 1) The concept and theory of network pharmacology; 2) Common analysis methods, databases and software in network pharmacological research; 3) Typical cases of traditional Chinese medicine modernization and modern drug research based on network pharmacology; 4) Network pharmacology practice process based on drugs and diseases.













Integrative Pharmacology-based Research on Traditional Medicine: Methodologies, Medical and Pharmacological Applications


Book Description

ntegrative Pharmacology can be used to determine the multi-pharmacological effects of traditional medicines such as traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), Kampo, Sa-sang, Ayurveda, etc.). Through qualitative and quantitative pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic (PK-PD) correlations among multi-constituents and multi-targets, integrating chemical profiling, ADME/PK processes, molecular network calculation and resulting experimental validation, the use of Integrative Pharmacology has become widespread. The data has provided a novel paradigm to evaluate the druggability of bioactive ingredients of herbs or formulae, to decipher the pharmacological mechanisms of drug action and to screen potentially new indications for approved drugs and previously unidentified adverse events. On this basis, Integrative Pharmacology may offer an effective way to test the potential scientific basis for traditional medicines and to assess what roles of traditional medicine can and cannot play in pharmaceuticals.




Network Pharmacology: Drug Discovery and Development


Book Description

Network pharmacology reveals pharmacological mechanisms of drugs for outlining the development and discovery of drugs along with clinical treatment. It combines clinical, experimental and computational investigation, while creating favorable conditions for investigating the features of traditional medicine. The aim of network pharmacology is to reveal and reflect on the biological foundations of various complex diseases and effects of drugs by the application of network based understanding. It is useful in drug discovery and development, as it combines system biology and genomic technologies through computational biological tools. It is capable of elucidating complex relations amidst biological systems, diseases and drugs. It emphasizes on systems level modeling of mechanism of drugs, by integrating protein-protein interaction, drug-target interaction along with other type of interactome data. This book explores all the important aspects of network pharmacology in the present day scenario. It presents researches and studies performed by experts across the globe. As this field is emerging at a rapid pace, the contents of this book will help the readers to understand drug discovery and development within network pharmacology.




Drug Discovery and Evaluation: Methods in Clinical Pharmacology


Book Description

Drug Discovery and Evaluation has become a more and more difficult, expensive and time-consuming process. The effect of a new compound has to be detected by in vitro and in vivo methods of pharmacology. The activity spectrum and the potency compared to existing drugs have to be determined. As these processes can be divided up stepwise we have designed a book series "Drug Discovery and Evaluation" in the form of a recommendation document. The methods to detect drug targets are described in the first volume of this series "Pharmacological Assays" comprising classical methods as well as new technologies. Before going to man, the most suitable compound has to be selected by pharmacokinetic studies and experiments in toxicology. These preclinical methods are described in the second volume „Safety and Pharmacokinetic Assays". Only then are first studies in human beings allowed. Special rules are established for Phase I studies. Clinical pharmacokinetics are performed in parallel with human studies on tolerability and therapeutic effects. Special studies according to various populations and different therapeutic indications are necessary. These items are covered in the third volume: „Methods in Clinical Pharmacology".







What Is Medicine?


Book Description

What Is Medicine? Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing is the first comparative history of two millennia of Western and Chinese medicine from their beginnings in the centuries BCE through present advances in sciences like molecular biology and in Western adaptations of traditional Chinese medicine. In his revolutionary interpretation of the basic forces that undergird shifts in medical theory, Paul U. Unschuld relates the history of medicine in both Europe and China to changes in politics, economics, and other contextual factors. Drawing on his own extended research of Chinese primary sources as well as his and others' scholarship in European medical history, Unschuld argues against any claims of "truth" in former and current, Eastern and Western models of physiology and pathology. What Is Medicine? makes an eloquent and timely contribution to discussions on health care policies while illuminating the nature of cognitive dynamics in medicine, and it stimulates fresh debate on the essence and interpretation of reality in medicine's attempts to manage the human organism.