Throughout China, plants play a vital role in health - with such items as green tea being used to prevent cancer. So the Ag Center scientists are studying what chemicals may be present and whether such medicines really work. We accomplished quite a bit in of learning how to cultivate it and providing it to the medical community for cancer treatment. Now we're ready to move on and look at some other things, and this trip will give us a chance to interact with other institutions in China and a chance to survey a site for another proposed project.
Chinese medicine has a long written history, so it is a logical place to begin, the scientists say.
One key is collecting plants for analysis, and doing it in a systematic manner so that the biological diversity of plants remains intact in China. Carpenter says all that takes time and money. The LSU Agricultural Center has funded us in terms of salaries and some research monies. We've also been funded by a Board of Regents Education Fund, and the Pacific West Cancer Fund of Seattle, Wash., has been a very good funding partner in recent years. Dr. Zhijun Liu, one of the investigators, says modern methods, such as tissue culture, will be used to analyze potential plants when the scientists return to Baton Rouge.