The Exploration Of Key Technology Selection For The Development Of Traditional Chinese Medicine Modernization

In the new historical period, R&D as the driving force, combination of inheritance and innovation are inevitable trends for the development of TCM. Selection the breaches and entry points of R&D innovation to accelerate the modernization of TCM is an inevitable choice to promote the development of TCM. Recently, the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China (MOST) is focusing on the strategic research "Foresight of science and technology". Combining with this work, the author draw the "Technology Foresight" methods, use research methods of literature search, questionnaire survey, expert seminar, etc., made a strategic research on the selection of key technologies for the deployment in the TCM field via systematic summarization of the strategic needs and bottleneck problems for the TCM developments. The paper identified12key technologies. The purpose is to clear the main direction and strategic focus of TCM in the next5-10years, accelerate the breaking of the bottleneck of modernization of TCM, and create a new situation of development of TCM in the future.The paper analyses the strategic position of TCM. The potential values of TCM in the clinics, industries, culture, R&D have significant implications to break through the conundrum in the prevention and treatment of serious disease, to backup the Health Care Reform, to foster Health Industry, to promote the soft power of the Chinese culture, to enhance the competitiveness in R&D of our nation. TCM plays a major mission of creation the future for human health. For the TCM career, considerable progresses has been made, which are manifested mainly in the following six areas:(a) More attentions and emphasis are paid on the development of TCM.(b) The service system of TCM has been established.(c) The number of personnel training in TCM increases substantially.(d) The innovation patterns and development of TCM have initially formed.(e) The industry of TCM is growing constantly.(f) The internationalization of TCM is accelerating. But in the context of prompt overall development of R&D and medical science, the development of TCM is facing severe challenges, include:(a) Trust crisis continues, and inheritance problem is very urgent.(b) Advantage in clinics weakens, and service capacity is still insufficient.(c) Industrial development faces challenges, and market potential is not adequately excavated. In short, the own distinctive advantages and the strategic value of TCM not fully display.For the development of R&D in TCM, the MOST, together with the SATCM (State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine), set the modernization of TCM as the strategic direction and the breakthrough points to promote the development of biomedical industry, to boost the health care reform, to improve the health level nationally, to lead the science and technology of China to the world, and to raise the competitiveness of soft power of Chinese culture. The sustained deployment and promotion has obtained several achievements:(a) The basic production system of common Chinese herbal medicines had been established. A number of valuable Chinese herbal medicines have been effectively protected.(b) The level of technical modernization of traditional Chinese drugs is progressing continually while the innovation in varieties of Chinese drugs is significantly accelerated.(c) The power of modern technology has joined into work in TCM inheritance. The scientific understanding of the connotation of TCM theory has been deepened.(d) The level of prevention and control of major diseases is upgrading constantly.(e) The deployment of scientific and technological research in TCM field is strengthened and the technologies in TCM field are enhanced.(f) The internationalization of TCM is making breakthroughs continually, and the products of TCM are on their way to the world.The main problems of the development of R&D in TCM are:(a) Lack of high-level researches, and the international influence is small.(b)Lack of systematic researches, and the main methodological development of TCM has not been established perfect, and fragmentation issues outstanding.(c)Lack of practical researches, not closely combined with individualized medicine in clinical practice, and not enough to solve practical problems. Literature analysis showed that: SCI papers of TCM accounts for only0.28%in the posting total amount of medical field globally. The number of papers published by China in area of TCM accounted for nearly half worldwide (49.95%). But in the first30highly cited papers, the papers published by Chinese are less than1/3. The main bottleneck in the development of TCM including the scientific interpretation and modern reconstruction of the TCM theoretical system, academic inheritance and evidence based assessment of individualized clinical technology, digitization and engineering of individualized clinical technology, resource bottlenecks; quality assurance, and modern development of Chinese drugs, standardization of prevention services of TCM.Based on the analysis of the current status, needs and problems of TCM, the author made a screening and summarization of candidate technologies. Through reference searching, questionnaire investigation and experts'discussion, the author gathered more than two hundreds technologies to be developed in priority, from the MOST technology foresight research group, the Zhujiang Forum office and the China Academy of Chinese Medical Science. Those technologies were categorized into a list of182technologies (135techs for the traditional Chinese medicine and47techs for the traditional Chinese drugs) and a candidate tech-list of48technologies was formed after the knowledge map research and symposium discussions.After the determination of the48candidate-techs list, a further selection of key technologies was taken by referring the implication of each candidate technology and the conclusion by experts from symposium. A final list of12key technologies was chosen, which could be classified into four strategic directions:how to solve bottleneck puzzles concerning self-development of TCM, how to guide the evolution of medical science and technology, how to create significant technology direction of human health in the future and how to foster the overall health industry. The12technologies were categorized into three classed:personalized diagnosis and treatments, preventive treatment of TCM and modernization of Chinese drugs. And bibliometric analysis and content analysis were also taken.In the final part, the author proposes four suggestions for the scientific and technological key-points of TCM, including:(a) Promote innovation through the integration, answer key scientific questions, and solve problems of development.(b) Promote innovation through the aggregation, break the challenges of own development, and expand the source of innovation.(c) Promote innovation through the application, improve the clinical therapy effect, and enhance the fundamental development.(d) Promote innovation through the cooperation, accelerate breakthrough of key technologies, and enhance the ability of competition.