Editor's Summary
12 July 2007
The long game
Trawling for useful drugs in the arcane potions of traditional Chinese medicine is not new. With a few exceptions, the well looks dry. But now pharmacologists are turning to a more modern 'holistic' approach to interrogate the millennia-old practice more thoroughly. If the staying power of traditional cures is due to complex combinations of active ingredients, the thinking goes, systems biology will reveal them.
Editorial: Hard to swallow
Is it possible to gauge the true potential of traditional Chinese medicine?
doi:10.1038/448106a
News Feature: Traditional medicine: A culture in the balance
Traditional Chinese medicine and Western science face almost irreconcilable differences. Can systems biology bring them together? Jane Qiu reports.
doi:10.1038/448126a