Interdisciplinary Research Matching Scheme of Hong Kong Baptist University has funded a joint research proposal from Institute of Integrated Bioinformedicine and Translational Science (IBTS), Department of Physics and Department of Biology in HKBU. The project is titled “Toward an Emerging Paradigm of Network Medicine: A Novel Approach to Combinational Herbs / Compounds-based Drug Discovery in Rheumatoid Arthritis”. The amount approved for this project (RC-IRMS/12-13/02) is HKD 3,000,000. The background of this project is that a complex molecular network is involved in pathophysiology of rheumatoid arthritis. In drug discovery for rheumatoid arthritis, the dominant approach is to find the maximal selective ligands to act on individual drug targets. The treatment potential of the available drugs is still not satisfactory because of lack of therapeutics targeting the whole molecular network of the disease. This joint project is to address the challenge. Principal Investigator of this project is Prof. Lu Aiping from IBTS. Co-Principal Investigator is Prof. Tang Leihan  and Prof. Wong Ricky Ngok-shun from Department of Physics and Department of Biology, respectively.

Prof. Ricky Wong (left), Prof. Aiping Lu (middle) and Prof. Lei Hang Tang (right)