Yuan Lin - Böcker

There has been a growing interest in the use of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) both in China and globally. In China, increased health care costs are associated with the widespread use of Western drugs and their related side-effects. Currently two-thirds of the drugs used in China are of Western origin while the other third is TCM. Health care costs can be more effectively controlled by wider use of TCM. Such trends provide an opportunity to develop a pharmaceutical industry based on herbal products for both the Chinese and global markets. Internationally, the World Health Organization has noted that a majority of the populations of developing countries mainly rely on traditional herbal formulations. Therefore, standardized and effective herbal medicines can play an important role in health care. All of this coincides with the growing use of herbal medicines in industrialized countries. To date, very little scientifically sound research on TCM has been published in English. This book is meant to provide the English-speaking world with a collection of papers on this important subject, covering such topics as research and development, clinical studies, and commercialization.

The "First International Conference on Traditional Chinese Medicine: Science, Regulation and Globalization" was held from August 30 to September 2, 2000 at the University of Maryland at College Park, Maryland. There were approximately 250 participants from the Peoples Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the United States. This objective of this conference was to promote international collaboration for the modernization of Traditional Chinese herbal medicines (TCM) and their introduction into the global health care system. It was mainly sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China and the NllI National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). It was organized by Dr. William Tai, then director of the Institute of Global Chinese Affairs at the University of Maryland and Dr. Yuan Lin, president of Marco Polo Technologies, Bethesda, MD. This conference was conceived by Dr. Tai two years earlier recognizing that this was an appropriate time and also the unique location of the University of Maryland. Today, there is a growing recognition of the of alternative medicine in modem societies and the rapid loss of importance knowledge about traditional methods for the treatment of the multitude of human illnesses found throughout the world. TCM has been in common use in China for thousands of years; and many of its formulations are well defined.

This concise reference summarizes the latest results in nano-structured thin films, the first to discuss both deposition methods and electronic applications in detail. Following an introduction to this rapidly developing field, the authors present a variety of organic and inorganic materials along with new deposition techniques, and conclude with an overview of applications and considerations for their technology deployment.