Laboratory Research

Laboratory Research

Laboratory research provides a critical step in understanding the cellular and molecular basis of how herbal medicines work in the body. Chemical analysis of herbal products for quality assurance provides an important extension to the clinical studies program, and provides a wealth of opportunities for innovation in medicinal product development. CompleMED has established state of the art laboratories for the investigation of the pharmacology and chemistry of herbal medicines. Our Herbal Analysis and Pharmacology Laboratories (HAPL) engage in basic lab research to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying the therapeutic effects of herbal medicines. We also investigate the chemical identification, bioactivity, bioavailability, mechanisms of action and molecular targets of herbal medicines. The Herbal Analysis Laboratory is one of the few university laboratories to be licensed by the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration to undertake testing and provide certificates of analysis for herbal products in line with regulatory requirements.

Key areas of research include:

• quality assurance through authentication of the botanical identity of raw herbs and identification of active ingredients through fingerprinting techniques
• extraction, isolation, and quantification of herbal biomarkers
• method development for quality assurance of complex herbal medicines
• stability studies
• pre-clinical bioactivity and clinical bioavailability studies
• molecular basis of the neuroprotective and anti-aging effects of traditional Chinese herbal medicines.

Facilities and Equipment
The Herbal Analysis Laboratory features a range of chromatographic and spectroscopic equipment for the isolation, extraction and identification of herbal constituents. The laboratory features:

• high performance liquid chromatography
• mass spectrometry
• high performance thin layer chromatography
• gas liquid chromatography.

The new Herbal Pharmacology laboratory is designed for biomolecular studies including high throughput bioassays and quantitative real time polymerase chain reactions. The tissue culture facility allows a variety of human and animal cell lines to be cultured, to enable research into biochemical, molecular biological or biophysical experiments under controlled conditions.

The facility is notable for being able to undertake patch clamp electrophysiology and digital fluorescence imaging at the same time. Specialist equipment includes:

• patch clamp
• digital fluorescence imaging
• high speed centrifuge
• tissue culture
• real time PCR
• plate reader with time results fluorescence illuminator.
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