The New Face of Traditional Chinese Medicine

摘要

TOKYO―Epidemiologists had long suspected that the low cancer rates in southeast China might be related to coix, a grasslike relative of maize that is a dietary staple in the region and a key ingredient of many traditional Chinese herbal medicines. But no one had as much faith in coix as pharmacologist Li Dapeng, who in 1975 began trying to coax the anticancer compounds out of the plant's seed. Twenty years later, Li won government approval to market the fruits of his research, a drug he calls Kanglaite, to help cancer patients fight their disease and reduce the side effects from other treatments.