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Allied J Med Res 2017
Volume 1 Issue 2
September 01-02, 2017 London, UK
3rd International Conference and Expo on
Herbal & Alternative Medicine
Herbal Medicine 2017
Potent and multi-faceted immune-modifying
activities of specific phytochemicals from
medicinal herbs
Recent studies showed that a spectrum of innate
immune responses, various immune cell types
and their cross-talks, and the associated inflammatory
activities are involved with many different types
of diseases. These findings strongly suggest that,
by modulating specific immune cell responses
or mechanism-defined, molecular/and cellular
inflammation-suppressing activities of targeted
diseases, we may then design new approaches for
therapy or treatment of organ-specific inflammatory and
chronic diseases, e.g., colitis, dermatitis, IBD and some
cancers. Interestingly, it’s well known and appreciated
that traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), especially
some commonly used medicinal herbs, claimed with
functional specificity (e.g., anti-dermatitis, promote
wound-healing), and routinely used historically for
hundreds to thousands of years, have been established
for their “strong anti-inflammatory” activities toward
specific organ/tissue targets. With the observations and
understandings, my laboratory has investigated a group
of phytoextracts or the derived pure phytochemicals
from specific TCM plants, and evaluated their
bioactivities/effects, in vitro and in vivo, on dendritic
cells, MDSCs, Th17, Tregs and other immune cell types
in mouse models of skin inflammation, colitis and tumor
metastasis systems. Experimentally, we employed
functional genomics, proteomics, transgenic promoter
analysis, cytokine/chemokine profiling, micro RNA array
and signaling pathway analysis systems in various cross-
examination studies. Results and findings, published in
seven key papers during the past several years will be
discussed and projected for future research directions.
The key lesson we learned from these studies: Highly
specific cellular, molecular and signaling pathway effect
on mouse and human dendritic cells, tumor stromal
cells, skin tissue cells can be obtained by specific
phytochemicals from TCM, apparently contributing to
the potent inflammatory-modulatory activities in test
animals of various disease models.
Biography
Ning-Sung Yang is a Distinguished Professor and Distinguished Research Fellow
of Academia Sinica and the associated universities in Taipei, Taiwan. His major
research interests include gene-based cancer vaccines, anti-inflammatory and
anti-cancer phytochemicals, and functional genomics studies of dendritic cells. He
has helped the development of gene gun technology and pioneered its application
to mammalian transgene experimental systems and gene therapy approaches.
After thirty years of a research career in USA, he went back to his home town
in Taiwan and established the Agricultural Biotechnology Research Center in
Academia Sinica, Taipei, which is now recognized for medicinal herb and crop plant
research. He was elected in 2006 as a member of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS, USA). He has published more than 160 research
papers, and obtained 14 USA patents.
Ning-Sun Yang
Agricultural Biotechnology Research Centre-Academia Sinica, Taiwan (ROC)
Ning-Sun Yang, Allied J Med Res 2017