- From: Kei Cheung <kei.cheung@yale.edu>
- Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 16:43:18 -0400
- To: Matthias Samwald <samwald@gmx.at>
- Cc: kc28@email.med.yale.edu, Tim Clark <twclark@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu>, "M. Scott Marshall" <marshall@science.uva.nl>, public-semweb-lifesci@w3.org, Huajun Chen <huajunsir@zju.edu.cn>
Matthias Samwald wrote: >> Speaking of national boundaries, I wonder if alternative medicine >> (e.g., herbal >> medicine) would also be of interest to this community. For example, >> Huperzine >> is a drug derived from the herb Huperzia serrata. I also wonder if >> there are >> hypotheses regarding the study of herbs in the possible treatment of >> neurological diseases. > > I would also be very motivated to help in this kind of research. > Specifically, Huperzine A would be a very interesting use-case for our > developments. It is a herbal compound with a history in folk medicine > and is available OTC in most countries, yet it rivals the > effectiveness of currently leading Alzheimer medications such as > Tacrine. It also has a dual mode of action that does not only involve > acetylcholinesterase inhibition, but also modulation of the NMDA > receptor. The implications of this for the treatment of Alzheimer's > are still a rather hot topic. That's great! Motivation is a good driving force. I agree such a herbal compound like Huperzine A can help translate herbal medicine into mainstream medicine. > > The integration of knowledge from traditional medicine, plant > taxonomy/phylogeny/biochemistry and receptor binding databases (PDSP > Ki database, IUPHAR) could lead to the identification of some > extremely novel therapeutic strategies. Finding candidate molecules in > such a way might be much more effective than weeding through libraries > of compounds generated by combinatorial synthesis etc. The challenge > lies in the integration of some very heterogenous datasets that come > from vastly different disciplines, which is exactly the field of > research where Semantic Web technologies are most effective. I'm also working with the SenseLab team to add Huperzine related data to BrainPharm. Speaking of traditional medicine, I copied to Huajun Chen who is heavily involved in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) database development. Plus he is a semantic web person. Perhaps, he can also help us in exploring/establishing this "east meets west" approach. > > I guess the major problem for this kind of research is that there are > no funding programmes that span China, the US and Asia... Sustainability is an important issue. If this community project takes off, we should seek international funding opportunities .... > > Cheers, > Matthias Samwald > > DERI Galway, Ireland // Semantic Web Company, Austria > http://www.deri.ie/ > http://www.semantic-web.at/ > >
Received on Tuesday, 27 May 2008 20:44:09 UTC