Waters has recognised the capability of the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica’s (SIMM) Research Center for Modernization of Traditional Chinese Medicine for developing an advanced quality control authentication system and profiling methods.

The research took place under the direction of Dr. De-an Guo. The research center plays a leading role in the effort to develop standardized methods for analysing the authenticity and compositional integrity of traditional medicines and bring them into compliance with quality standards instituted by the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA).

“This  is the first time that the TCM Research Center is honoured by Waters for the Centers of Innovation Programme. This is a wonderful opportunity for the Center and Waters to work closely together to tackle the holistic analysis of the complex Chinese herbal system,” said Yang Ye, deputy director, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica.

“The work of the Institute and the Research Center is vital to the efforts to globalise traditional chinese medicine and enlist it in the fight against disease and in the quest to improve human health,” said Dr. Mike Harrington, VP, Asia/Pacific Operations, Waters Division.

According to Eric Fotheringham, director, Waters Centers of Innovation Programme, "We are particularly pleased to welcome Dr. Guo and his team into the Waters Centers of Innovation Programme, as they are the first COI Programme partner focused upon the challenges of characterizing TCM related raw materials and manufactured products."

Brian Smith, vice president, Mass Spectrometry Operations, Waters Division, said, “Through our partnership with Dr. Guo, and by combining analytical technology with great science, we are helping one another advance TCM and bring it onto a global stage.”

Currently, many TCM quality standards are mostly based on the presence of a single marker in a sample, but as Dr. Guo points out, this approach is not without its drawbacks, since an unscrupulous manufacturer could simply add that single marker into the formulation to falsify the results. We now use UPLC to profile the whole chemical composition, and to quantify the multiple active markers.

To fulfill its mission, the Center uses a variety of instruments in addition to the Waters Acquity UPLC System. They include the Waters Acquity QDa Mass Detector, the Acquity UPC2 Convergence Chromatography system, and a Xevo G2-XS QTof mass spectrometer. The Center also relies on modern informatics platforms, such as the Waters UNIFI Scientific Information System to maintain high working efficiency.