Mutual understanding between Traditional Chinese Medicine and systems biology: gaps, challenges and opportunities

Abstract

While Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and systems biology have philosophical differences, both address human health using an integrative approach and both aim towards personalised medicine. The post-genomic era provides a unique opportunity for the two fields to understand and benefit from each other. In this review, the two approaches are compared, and various examples and hypotheses are provided to show how some practices in TCM might be interpreted by systems biology.