Abstract
In Chinese medicine, Zheng-hou, instead of disease, is used to define complex medical problems in clinical practice. In the postgenomics era, it becomes particularly compelling to review the application of Zheng-hou in characterizing complex clinical problems independent of disease or syndrome. While disease or syndrome describes a pathological phenotype or phenotypes, Zheng-hou spells the pathological phenome. Clinical Zheng-hou pharmacology (CZP) is an emerging clinical discipline that aims to leverage breakthroughs in the genome-wide solutions for complex medical problems through a combination of the current “omics” technology and the knowledge of Chinese medicine. The concept of CZP suggests that systematic and standard studies of multiple phenotypes will be important because of the collaborative cross between diversified external and internal factors at different levels both in vitro and in vivo. In this paper, we discuss the novel phenomic approaches to the understanding of Zheng-hou and the link of pharmacogenomics to personalized medicine through CZP, or pharmacophenomics. CZP enables ever-finer mapping of Zheng-hou and detection of dynamic variations in most current omics platforms. Although major challenges still remain in identifying and effectively investigating the diversity of Zheng-hou, CZP is expected to pave new paths to the systemic understanding of medical problems. While still at early stages in the clinical phenome domain, there remains great promise that CZP can help us realize the application of personalized medicine and contribute to rational holistic diagnosis and treatment.
Keywords: Chinese medicine, Zheng-hou, Clinical Zheng-hou pharmacology, pharmacogenomics, personalized medicine, phenomic.
Call for Papers in Thematic Issues
Ischemic Cardiovascular Diseases: Mechanisms, Diagnosis and Therapy
Ischemic cardiovascular disease includes myocardial infarction, coronary atherosclerotic heart disease, angina pectoris, etc., constitute the leading cause of patient mortality by preventing tissues from getting sufficient oxygen and nutrients. Ischemic heart disease, as a clinical condition, is characterized by myocardial ischemia, causing an imbalance between myocardial blood supply and demand, ...read more
TREATMENT OF CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE IN CHRONIC AND END STAGE KIDNEY DISEASE
Cardiovascular disease still remains the leading cause of death in Chronic and End Stage Kidney Disease, accounting for more than half of all deaths in dialysis patients. During the past decade, research has been focused on novel therapeutic agents that might delay or even reverse cardiovascular disease and vascular calcification, ...read more
Related Journals
Anti-Cancer Agents in Medicinal Chemistry
Anti-Inflammatory & Anti-Allergy Agents in Medicinal Chemistry
Current Bioactive Compounds
Current Cancer Drug Targets
Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening
Current Cancer Therapy Reviews
Current Diabetes Reviews
Current Drug Safety
Current Drug Targets
Current Drug Therapy
Related Books
Drug Addiction Mechanisms in the Brain
Software and Programming Tools in Pharmaceutical Research
Objective Pharmaceutics: A Comprehensive Compilation of Questions and Answers for Pharmaceutics Exam Prep
Medicinal Chemistry of Drugs Affecting Cardiovascular and Endocrine Systems
Advanced Pharmacy
Plant-derived Hepatoprotective Drugs
The Role of Chromenes in Drug Discovery and Development
New Avenues in Drug Discovery and Bioactive Natural Products
Practice and Re-Emergence of Herbal Medicine
Blood Oxidant Ties: The Evolving Concepts in Myocardial Injury and Cardiovascular Disease
28
1