About Us

Herb polysaccharides, being safe and effective, show great medication potential. However, few polysaccharide-based new medicines have been developed because polysaccharides are hardly absorbed into blood and their bioactivities are widely doubted. Recently, Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) found a new lymph-targeted absorption route for orally-dosed Chinese medicine polysaccharides to quickly enter the intestinal immune organ and trigger a series immune response. This finding makes a way to put insights into the unknown mechanism of polysaccharides’ bioactivities, especially, highlighted the potential application as the desired oral vaccine delivery materials. The Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine Polysaccharides and Intestinal Immunity is the latest and ninth research center established by the School of Chinese Medicine, marking the further expansion and deepening of the school's research in the field of traditional Chinese medicine.

The mission of this Research Centre is to promote health and well-being for all at all ages by investigating, translating, and disseminating the knowledge regarding herb polysaccharide’s benefits to health by: 

i. establishing more research teams to explore the chemistry, intestinal immunology, and mechanism of actions of herbal polysaccharides; 

ii. collaborating with industrial/academic partners to explore polysaccharide’s potential in developing lymphatic-targeted new drugs, and oral vaccines; and

iii. providing scientific evidence to facilitate the internationalisation and modernisation of TCM in the form of more competitive botanical drugs that will have far-reaching benefits.

The objectives of this Research Centre are: