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Original article reprinted: Key Recommendations: Quality Evaluation of Traditional Chinese Medicine Based on New Sensor Technologies
Quality control in the production process of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a priority and key development area in TCM scientific research. The development of a new generation of quality control technologies for TCM production processes, characterized by “portable, non-destructive, and reliable” sensor-based methods, is a major scientific issue for the development of the TCM industry. Therefore, how to inherit and develop quality control technologies for TCM production processes has become one of the focal points for many TCM researchers.
The authentic medicinal materials have always been the gold standard for evaluating the quality of TCM. Authentic medicinal materials are the crystallization of ancient wisdom, perceived through methods such as visual observation, tasting, tactile examination, and olfactory assessment, combined with clinical validation. Over the past decade, the emergence and application of various new sensor technologies have gradually addressed the limitations of human sensory perception, which can only recognize three-dimensional space, perceive visible light wavelengths, distinguish at millimeter scales, simply differentiate tastes, and sense only minor fluctuations, often limited to linear cognition.
Professor Qiao Yanjian and Professor Wu Zhisheng’s team from Beijing University of Chinese Medicine published a guiding review titled “Quality Evaluation of Traditional Chinese Medicine Based on New Sensor Technologies” in the English edition of the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B) in 2017, Volume 2, systematically reporting the research progress of domestic and international scientists and their team over the years, and providing outlooks.
In this article, the authors systematically introduce new sensor technologies for the overall perception and quality control of TCM. Perception is a research area within information science, focusing on biological characteristics and other subjects. The introduction of perceptual methods into TCM production process quality control integrates the holistic original thinking of TCM, employing new sensors and information fusion technologies to conduct comprehensive studies on machine vision, machine olfaction, machine hearing, and machine taste, achieving overall perception and quality control of TCM.
The authors systematically present the latest research progress of new sensor technologies such as spectroscopy, imaging, and artificial intelligence sensory methods from both qualitative and quantitative analysis perspectives, across multiple levels including TCM raw materials, intermediate processes, and finished products, focusing on quality attributes related to the origin of TCM, production areas, and processing methods, and discuss directions for further efforts in this field.
Newsensor technologies in quality evaluation of Chinese materia medica: 2010–2015
Acta Pharm Sin B 2017;7(2):137-45.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apsb.2016.10.001
Zhisheng Wu
Fuyao Zhishang
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