Website Profile of Member Organisations
Pharmaceutical & Natural Products Research Group, Department of Pharmacy, School of Applied Sciences
DepartmentUniversity of Wolverhampton
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| Head of the orgnisation Prof Kelvin Chan | ||
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Description of the Organisation
The new group is formed upon the arrival of the Head of Pharmacy Department, who brings along research expertise in activity screening, herb-drug interactions and service experience in quality control and clinical studies of Chinese medicines, which can logically be integrated with the well-developed research disciplines of agricultural(supported by the Research Centre in Applied Sciences), environmental (Prof. Fullen’s expertise) and healthcare (supported by the Research Institute in Healthcare Sciences in both basic and clinical studies) focuses within the School of Applied Sciences at the University of Wolverhampton. Such a strategy is set up in response to the emerging interests of Chinese medicine (CM) and other complementary disciplines in primary healthcare in the UK and other developed countries that have identified more input needed of professional, scientific and technological expertise in CM, in particular, those who are working in the use of Chinese medicinal materials (CMM), and related natural and herbal products.
Details of the project of work in relation to Chinese Medicine
The Pharmaceutical & Natural Products Research Group will put on research programmes developed along the following directions, paying special attention of bringing environmental, economical, healthcare and social aspects together:
1) Set up Quality Control services on herbal and natural products with potential supports from local government bodies and /or industrial organisations;
2) Initiate projects of growing medicinal plants to prevent desertification with good agricultural practice in collaboration with partners in China and Brazil presently and other countries with arid lands that can be used for planting Chinese and other native medicinal plants using GAP guidelines. This will bring environmental, economic and social benefits to farmers and at the same time guarantee replenishing natural materials for medicinal use or pharmaceutical development;
3) Collaborate with partners in China to look at the biology & pharmaceutical investigations of Chinese medicinal plants in areas of metabolic syndromes; the programme involves GAP cultivation of medicinal plants after botanical/physiological characterization using RCAS facilities in the Compton Green House in Wolverhampton;
4) Bioactivity screening of extracts and purified compounds from herbal sources using in-house faculties available in the RIHS;
6) Pharmaceutical/nutriceutical development of CMM based on in-house expertise and interests of pharmaceutical formulation;
7) Collaborate with UK centres within the consortium to develop the English version of a Quality of Life instrument developed in Chinese language (ChQOL) for use in assessing the efficacy of treatment using Chinese medicine, forming an evidence-base tool; this has been shown more effective than WHO100 or SF36 in assessing aspects of QOL in patients being treated by Chinese medicine approaches, and
8) Setting up postgraduate specialist courses in conjunction with partners within the CUC.