Campus Digest

HKBU co-organises Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine Symposium with Harvard Medical School

30 Jun 2017

Scholars from SCM and HMS hold constructive dialogues at the symposium Scholars from SCM and HMS hold constructive dialogues at the symposium
Scholars from SCM and HMS hold constructive dialogues at the symposium

 

The University joined hands with the Harvard Medical School (HMS) of Harvard University in the US to hold a two-day symposium entitled “Traditional Chinese and Western medicine: what can we learn from each other” on the HMS campus on 20-21 June. This first event of its kind between the two schools brought together scientists and clinicians of Western and Chinese medicine not only to share knowledge but also to spark discussions and explore potential research collaborations.

At the symposium Vice-President (Research and Development) Professor Rick Wong led a 20-member HKBU delegation comprising scholars, researchers and PhD students from the School of Chinese Medicine (SCM) and the Faculty of Science. Through talks and poster presentations HKBU delegation members shared their wisdom on the use of Chinese medicine approaches to diagnosis and disease classification.

Four SCM scholars gave enlightening talks about their research. Dean of SCM Professor Lyu Aiping gave a talk on “Overview of TCM therapy and TCM classification of syndromes of diseases”; Associate Vice-President of HKBU and Director of the Clinical Division of SCM Professor Bian Zhaoxiang delivered a talk on “Characteristics and challenges for clinical trial with Chinese medicine”; Director of the Teaching and Research Division of SCM Professor Li Min spoke on “Exploration of neuroprotective drug discovery based on TCM clinical practice”; while Director of the Technology Development Division of SCM Professor Zhang Ge shared his work on “New drug development by combination of Western drugs and Chinese medicine compounds”.

HMS experts Dean George Daley, Professor Charles Serhan and Professor Jon Clardy gave talks on topics including chemical biology and natural product based drug discovery, integrating acupuncture into conventional cancer treatment, placebo effects in Western and traditional medicine, proteomics, xenobiotics metabolism, gut microbiome and informatics tools.