University of Hong Kong announced Friday the establishment of a collaborative Research Center for Botanical Immuno-modulators with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) at New York of America.

The establishment of the new center has been awarded a sponsorship from the National Institutes of Health of America.

This center will investigate botanicals with reported ability to modulate immune function and their relevance for the treatment of cancers.

Research will be conducted to advance the scientific knowledge about the safety, effectiveness, and mechanisms of action of anticancer botanicals. The major area of interest will be on the immuno-modulating influences, either directly supporting the patient consumers, indirectly through a support of the already developed resistance, or both.

The Chinese University is responsible to draw up the list of potentially anticancer herbs, acquire quality samples, further authenticate on the quality, maintain the consistency and later, extracting the active components.

MSKCC will work on the biological effects of the selected herbs to see the biological standards of action on immunological modulation.

(Xinhua News Agency May 14, 2005)