New TCM lab approved for Tianjin

A new national-level key research laboratory for traditional Chinese medicine has been approved for Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. It is expected to boost research on the components of TCM.

The laboratory will be based at the world's largest traditional Chinese medicine component storage center at the institute, which is now home to 60,000 TCM components.

The institute is expected to release more than 80,000 TCM components and 5,000 TCM compounds over the next five years, which will facilitate development of new drugs based on TCM.

The institute, led by Zhang Boli, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and president of the TCM University in Tianjin, contributed to the world's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic by incorporating TCM treatments at makeshift hospitals in Wuhan, Hubei province.

More precise research into the components of TCM will help hasten modernization and development of TCM, Zhang said.

Yao Xiaoqing, president of Tianjin Chase Sun Pharmaceutical Co, the producer of the Xuebijing injection, one of the three traditional Chinese medicines authorized by authorities to treat the coronavirus-related pneumonia, said the drug had "undergone 10 years of difficult component-based studies in line with rigorous Western medicine research standards and convinced Western counterparts of its effects and results."