Published in Probe Volume 5(1): February-March 1995
Two databases, one covering aromatic and medicinal plants; another featuring traditional practices in Oriental medicine, will become available on CD-ROM, according to announcements by their sponsoring research organizations.
The first is an integrated and factual database from the Asian Pacific Information Network on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (APINMAP). Participants at the fourth APINMAP Management Board meeting (University Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsarn, Malaysia, June 21-23, 1994) made the decision to release it in CD-ROM format.
The APINMAP integrated database contains information on medicinal and aromatic plants in: agriculture and forestry; plant biology; chemistry and chemistry of natural products; pharmacy; health and medicine, including veterinary medicine; and ethnology. It also covers industrial applications; economics; policies and legislation; education, extension, and promotion; and general plant characteristics.
The factual database, on the other hand, provides users with data pertaining to five major areas of study on medicinal and aromatic plants: botany, chemistry, pharmacy, medicine, and marketing.
The CD-ROM undertaking is made possible through a grant given by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada. The grant is part of a 6-year IDRC project called "CD-ROM of Asian Information on Health and Environment." APINMAP is one of the initial nine institutions which will be involved in contributing its data to the project. The Publication and Information Directorate (PID) in India is the project's lead agency.
APINMAP is a voluntary cooperative program established by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1987. Its primary aim is to assist its participating countries in improving and enhancing their capabilities to collect, process, disseminate, and use research information and data on medicinal and aromatic plants. So far, the network has 14 member countries: Australia, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam.
APINMAP's Network Center is SEAMEO SEARCA's Information Resources Unit (IRU, formerly Agricultural Information Bank for Asia or AIBA). IRU produces the APINMAP databases and distributes them to the national nodes of each member country, advises and arranges staff training, coordinates activities in accordance with the approved work plan of the network, and assists the Philippine-based Secretariat in disseminating information on APINMAP activities.
APINMAP's management board meets once every 2 years to discuss future activities and directions of the network. It is composed of representatives from the national nodes of each member country. During its meeting, the Board discusses policies which may affect the network in the future, including suspension of inactive members, full document backup to citations/abstracted inputs, copyright protocol, pricing of APINMAP products, identified users, treatment of information from unwritten sources, sale or distribution of database searches in diskettes, and training of staff in each national node.
In addition to the country representatives, the meeting was attended by Delia E. Torrijos, UNESCO Regional Adviser for the General Information Programme in Asia and the Pacific; Director Percy E. Sajise, Dr. Josephine C. Sison and Alice H. Rillo, IRU Project Officer and Information Specialist, respectively, all of SEARCA; and Dr. Narong Chomchalow, an observer from the Asian Network on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (ANMAP).
The second database, focusing on traditional Oriental medicine, was developed at the Natural Products Research Institute, Seoul National University, Republic of Korea. It is an effort of the New Korean Drugs Research and Development Project, one of the national research projects supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology since 1992.
Called TradiMed, the database's content is derived from knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine. Its aim is to integrate the ancient wisdom of Oriental tradition with modern science and technology.
TradiMed offers three major information databases:
* a prescription database, which provides information on efficacy, dosages, adverse effects, and other knowledge about thousands of traditional Korean and Chinese drugs.
* a chemistry database, which includes thousands of natural constituents found in herbal, microbial, and marine sources, showing the chemical formula, chemical structure, and various analytical data, such as spectral data.
* a photo-image database, which shows full-color images of medicinal plants and herbs identified by systematic botanists.
TradiMed contains information useful to researchers searching for new drugs derived from natural products and traditional medicines. At present, domestic users are able to access the database through a national network. Special CD-ROM titles were slated to become available for the practices of Western and Oriental doctors and pharmacists at the end of 1994. Beginning this year, information in the database will be translated to English so that Western scientists can access it.
For more information, please contact the following address:
Natural Products Research Institute, Seoul National University 28 Yeongun-Dong, Jongro-Ku Seoul 110-460 REPUBLIC OF KOREA Tel.: (82-2) 740-8901 Telex: SNUROK K29664 Fax: (82-2) 742-9951