title: Establishing an EU-China consortium on traditional Chinese medicine research.
abstract: Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is widely used in the European Union (EU) and attracts intense research interests from European scientists. As an emerging area in Europe, TCM research requires collaboration and coordination of actions. Good Practice in Traditional Chinese Medicine Research in the Post-genomic Era, also known as GP-TCM, is the first ever EU-funded 7th Framework Programme (FP7) coordination action, aiming to inform the best practice and harmonise research on the safety and efficacy of TCM through interdisciplinary exchange of experience and expertise among clinicians and scientists. With its increasingly large pool of expertise across 19 countries including 13 EU member states, Australia, Canada, China, Norway, Thailand and the USA, the consortium provides forums and collaboration platforms on quality control, extraction technology, component analysis, toxicology, pharmacology and regulatory issues of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM), as well as on acupuncture studies, with a particular emphasis on the application of a functional genomics approach. The project officially started in May 2009 and by the time of its conclusion in April 2012 a Europe-based academic society dedicated to TCM research will be founded to carry on the mission of GP-TCM.
authors.affiliation: Department of Renal Medicine, King's College London, London, UK. halil.uzuner@kcl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Halil
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Uzuner
authors.forename: Tai-Ping
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dias
authors.forename: De-An
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Hani S
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: El-Nezami
authors.forename: Qihe
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Xu