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Innovative development path of ethnomedicines: an overview of ethnomedicines in China

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Abstract

In the long history of disease prevention and treatment, ancestral populations worldwide have gained knowledge and experiences in traditional medicines. For instance, ethnomedicines of Chinese ethnic minorities constitute an important part of traditional medicines. In our study, we firstly clarified the concept of ethnomedicines and the connotations of ethnopharmacology. The particularity of ethnomedicine research were then summed up, and the development profiles of the ethnomedicines of Chinese ethnic minorities were discussed by investigating the current status and existing problems. On this basis, we abstracted the innovative development path of ethnomedicines for the first time, which was found to follows:resource study → standardized development research → industrialization of the achievements and efforts for internationalization. We found that platform establishment and team training are keys to achieving innovative development. Hence, this study provided a basis for ethnomedicine development.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Yunnan Institute of Materia Medica, Innovation and R & D Center of Yunnan Baiyao Group Co., Ltd., and Yunnan Province Company Key Laboratory for New Drug Research and Development of TCM and Ethnomedicines, Kunming, 650111, China

    Zhaoyun Zhu, Ting Wang, Dehuan Fu, Yali Gui, Jingkun Wang & Tao Cui

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  1. Zhaoyun Zhu
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  2. Ting Wang
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  3. Dehuan Fu
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  4. Yali Gui
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  5. Jingkun Wang
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  6. Tao Cui
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Correspondence to Zhaoyun Zhu.

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Zhu, Z., Wang, T., Fu, D. et al. Innovative development path of ethnomedicines: an overview of ethnomedicines in China. Front. Med. 10, 166–177 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11684-016-0448-9

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