Osteoporosis is a metabolic bone disease that afflicts millions of elderly in China and Hong Kong with increased risk of fracture incidence. To study the efficacy of Chinese herbal medicine in the treatment of osteoporosis and to elucidate the mechanisms involved in actions, Dr Wong Man-sau, Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology and Deputy Director of Food Safety and Technology Research Centre, partnered with local and mainland universities to study the modernization and application of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in anti-osteoporosis.

The study aimed at establishing a world-class research platform for anti- osteoporosis with a scientific mechanism for modernization of TCM and its applications. In this mechanism, integration of biology and chemistry was adopted for a conceptual framework. Systematic procedures were undertaken, including derived medical principles based on traditional TCM application, evaluated TCM’s clinical effect through inter-disciplinary participation, established animal models for clinical testing, systematically studied functional substances in anti-osteoporosis medicine, identified medicine’s operation principles, expounded multi-targeted treatment, set modernization criteria, and supported the internationalization of products.

This project was recently awarded a second-class award in Scientific and Technological Progress (Promotion Category) of the Ministry of Education’s Higher Education Outstanding Scientific Research Output Awards (Science and Technology) 2013.