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China's Genome Program to Modernize Traditional Medicine Production
Chinese scientists will study the genetic map of 800 plants that have been used as medicine in China for thousands of years.
The comprehensive project will enable scientists to separate chromosomes and nucleic acid, locate all the functional genes, and set up a gene data base.
If successful, widespread production of traditional Chinese medicine will become possible, and medicinal plants will be mass planted using trans-gene method.
For thousands of years, Chinese have used mixtures of plants and animal bones to cure disease with a success rate that continues to baffle modern science.
While western chemical-based medicine is used in Asia, many people prefer traditional Chinese medicine which they believe has fewer side effects.
As collecting medicinal plants in the wild is not easy, Japan and the Republic of Korea have developed traditional medicine in laboratories and made them marketable.
"Our program will give a full picture of the genome of traditional medicine and develop new varieties of drugs," said Guo Wei, head of the Henan-based Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine Genome Program.
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