Day 1 :
Keynote Forum
Ping Chung Leung
Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Keynote: China’s new directives on nutraceuticals and Hong Kong experience
Time : 09:30 AM to 10:30 AM
Biography:
Professor LEUNG Ping Chung, OBE, JP, Hon DSSc, DSC, MBBS, MS, FRACS, FRCS(Edin), FHKCOS, FHKAM(Orth); is Emeritus Professor of Orthopaedics & Traumatology, Faculty of Medicine; Director of Centre for Clinical Trials on Chinese Medicine, Institute of Chinese Medicine. His research areas including Orthopaedics, Osteoporosis, Microsurgery, Public Health, Traditional Chinese Medicine and General Education. He is also the author of over 800 scientific manuscripts in journals and 27 books. Professor Leung has been appointed as editor of 11 International Journals since 1982. He is trying hard to develop a research methodology basing on modern clinical science requirements, to modernize on Traditional Chinese medicine. Currently he is working on projects related to aging and neurodegeneration, which initiated his enthusiasm searching for wisdom from other well-established traditional medicine regions in the Middle East and South Asia.
Abstract:
Nutraceuticals could be interpreted as nutritional supplements any food substance that is good for health from dairy products to protein or fruit concentrates. Nutraceuticals could be more specific with clear target groups and special claims. China is moving towards that direction. Its State FDA since 2015 has issued a series of guideline for the development of nutritional supplements with special medicinal purposes and contents. Three areas are given immediate priorities viz. infants, lactating mothers and elderlies. Proper clinical trials are recommended. The Institute of Chinese Medicine at Chinese University of Hong Kong has been seriously developing medicinal supplements since year 2000. It has followed the evidence-based approach: From quality assurance, safety, bioactivity confirmations to proper clinical trials. Classical popular complex herbal formulations have been modified into simple combinations to form effective, medicinal supplement to support allopathic treatment of special conditions. The choice of herbs is guided by the pathological processes involved in particular disease entities. Examples of medicinal supplements developed for cancer and cardiovascular treatment will be given to illustrate the principle and procedures involved.
Keynote Forum
Jae Youl Cho
Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea
Keynote: Korean Ginseng: Components as immunomodulators
Time : 10:30 AM to 11:30 AM
Biography:
Dr. Cho is a Professor at Sungkyunkwan University. His research areas are inflammatory and cancer signaling and development of anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer remedy from natural resources. His current research interests are to understand oncogene-related signaling cascade in cancer and inflammatory cells and figure out the molecular mechanism of anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer actions of naturally-occurring components. He is working as Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Ginseng Research (IF = 4.0) and a director of Research Institute of Biomolecule control sponsored by National Research Foundation Korea. He received a B.Sc. in Genetic Engineering from Sungkyunkwan University and M.Sc. (Genetic Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University) and Ph.D. (Molecular Immunology) from University College London in 2001. After his Ph.D., he worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Washington University. Before his moving to Sungkyunkwan University, Dr. Cho was an assistant and associate professor of Kangwon National University for 8 years from 2003. He has published 400 peer-reviewed papers and 150 registered and applied patents.
Abstract:
Ginseng is ethno-pharmacologically valuable herbal plant in Korea, China and Japan as well as North America. It has been reported to display a lot of pharmacological activities including anti-oxidative, anti-stress, anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic and anti-obesity effects. Ginsenosides or ginseng saponins and acid polysaccharides are major principles showing ginseng’s biological activities. By numerous studies immunoregulatory mechanism of ginseng and its active ingredients at the molecular levels has been elucidated. Thus, macrophages and NK cells are known as representative target cells in the regulation of immune responses by ginseng acid polysaccharides were components to activate macrophage and NK cell-mediated innate immune responses. Ginsenoside (G)-Rb1, G-Rc and G-Rd are found to suppress inflammatory responses by suppressing NF-kB and AP-1 pathways. Furthermore compound K, a metabolite of Ginseng saponins, stimulated functionality of macrophages by enhancement of transcriptional activation under normal conditions, whereas this compound displayed anti-inflammatory activity during LPS treatment. Target of compound K seems to be considered as AKT1. Therefore, these results strongly suggest that Korean ginseng is capable of normalizing suppressed or enhanced immune responses by modulation of specific target proteins such as AKT1 linked to the activation of NF-kB and AP-1 pathway.
Keynote Forum
Ming-Ching Kao
China Medical University, Taiwan
Keynote: Growth inhibition of acute myeloid leukemia cells by Chinese herbal medicine Ganoderma tsugae via mitochondria/caspase activation pathway
Time : 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM
Biography:
Ming-Ching Kao has completed his PhD from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, USA. He was the Chairman/Director of Department of Biochemistry, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan. Currently, he is a Professor of the Department of Biological Science and Technology, China Medical University, Taiwan. He has published more than 89 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an Editorial Board Member of Journal of Traditional and Complementary Medicine. His research interests include anti-cancer traditional medicine and gene therapy.
Abstract:
Ganoderma (also called Lingzhi or Reishi) belongs to a Chinese Herbal Medicine (CHM) and has been widely used as a dietary supplement and for preventing or curing a wide variety of diseases including cancer in Asian countries. Ganoderma tsugae (GT), one of the major species of Lingzhi cultivated in Taiwan has been reported that GT Ethanol Extract (GTEE) has growth inhibition effects on human cancer cells, including breast cancer, ovarian cancer, colorectal cancer, epidermoid carcinoma, hepatoma and lung adenocarcinoma. However, little is known about the effects of GTEE on Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). The purpose of this study is to unravel the anti-leukemia effects of GTEE and their relevant molecular mechanisms. By using CCK-8 and trypan blue assays, we found that GTEE had potential growth inhibition effect on human leukemia THP-1 cells. Furthermore, GTEE induced human THP-1 cell apoptosis through the mitochondria/caspase activation pathway in a dose-dependent manner. Subsequently, GTEE may inhibit survival of human leukemia THP-1 cells via modulation of expression and activation of AKT pathway. Taken together, this study suggests that GTEE may be beneficial to human healthcare and be an adjuvant therapeutic agent for the treatment of human leukemia.