Hello. I am the fourth speaker, Min-Ho Nam. Nice to meet you.
First of all, today, I’d like to tell you about the scientification of Korean medicine and its future.
Among many research fields of Korean medicine, I am studying the primo vascular system. So that will be the focus of my talk.
Korean medicine is the study theorized by using Yinyang theory, Five-Elements (Wuxing) theory and Qi which were the dominant theories at that time for explaining clinical observation and its effectiveness.
This picture, on the left side, is 신형장부도 in Dongeuibogam
At that time, dissection of a human body was already being performed.
Nevertheless, the reason for drawing the human body in this way was to explain the theory of Korean medicine.
This picture on the right is showing the stomach meridianwhich is one of twelve acupuncture meridians of our body.
The meridian is the pathway transporting Qi and blood in our body, and the linkage between the surface and internal organs, up and down, and right and left of our body.
As you can see this picture, though the the meridian runs along the route fixed, Korean medicine has only approached the meridian from a functional perspective rather than an anatomical one.
Furthermore the meridian is the area where acupuncture or moxibustion is applied in a Korean medicine clinic and the mechanism how acupuncture and moxibustion functions.
The current Korean medicine is different from the past one.
Of course current Korean medicine keeps the tradition of past 2000 years. But also it tries to spread the unique values of Korean medicine to the future by using scientific tools.
The left figure shows the fMRI research about the reaction of the brain when getting acupuncture treatment.
And next figure indicates evidence based medicine (EBM) in order to explain the effect of Korean medicine by using strict statistical methods.
These tries with modern science leads global interest to Korean medicine, and ‘Nature’, one of the top science journals, has focused on Korean medicine and spotlighted its future and value.
Korean medicine is a study of theorizing observed clinical phenomenon by using science and philosophy which were dominant in that ages during the last 2000 years.
Modern science is a study of theorizing natural phenomenon observed during last 400 years by using science and philosophy.
Korean medicine has had 2000 years of development and within it include 400 years of scientific development.
(Because of poor quality of recording, this part was recorded again.)
Therefore we have to notice that there are many philosophies and sciences of each age fused in Korean medicine.
In other word, the scientification of Korean medicine is not reforming it to a new science by force, but its natural course of development.
The main characteristic of Korean medicine is naturalistic, holistic, comprehensive, human-centered, and relation-centered.
These are the values which excels over western medicine. And it is the reason Korean medicine will be more worthy in the future.
Modern science is based on the ‘entity’.
‘Entity’ is the thing that science can not give up.
The entity means not only the visible mass, but also the exact mechanism of a phenomenon.
The physiology of Korean medicine has two main pillars, organs and meridian.
The organs have anatomical entity such as liver, heart, spleen, lung and kidney; therefore it is easy to understand in western medicine. However, as meridian do not hold an anatomical entity in the medical classics, it is difficult to accept in the view of science.
Therefore, it is very important to figure out the entity of the meridian.
In this view, there is a research in the discovery of the anatomical entity of meridians, the research on primo vascular system. And this is what I will be mainly talking about today.
Another research area is studying how it reacts when people get acupuncture through fMRI research, and the mechanism of neuroscience, and endocrinology.
So, From now on, let’s start to learn about what the primo vascular system is.
Until now, only two systemic circulatory system are broadly known. Those being the blood vascular system and the lymphatic system.
And recently, primo vascular system has been newly reported
Primo vascular system consists of the primo vessel, primo node, and primo fluid that flows inside the primo vessel.
This is just like lymphatic system that consists of a lymphatic vessel, a lymphatic node and lymphatic fluid flowing inside them.
These are the figures of primo vessel.
The central one is an image of scanning electron microscope and the bottom one is an image of phase contrast microscope.
Throughout these figures, we can figure out that the primo vessel is a bundle structure that is composed of some small tubes.
Let’s see the upper figure. These are nuclei. Each primo sub-vessel is surrounded with endothelial cells which are detected as rod-shaped nuclei.
This is a diagram of a primo vessel.
You can observe that the primo vessel looks just like a lotus root since it consists of several sub-vessels unlike a blood vessel or a lymphatic vessel.
The thing that the primo vessel can do is function as a circulatory system which is inferred since each primo vessel is surrounded with endothelial cells.
The primo fluid is produced in the primo node. Its key material is primo microcell.
This primo microcell is known to it function as the origin of embryonic stem cell, and the size is only 1~2 micrometer.
Primo microcells exhibit positive reaction with Oct4 and nanog, which are stem cell-positive biomarkers.
The primo microcell is the key of the primo vascular system function.
Primo vascular system exists throughout all body.
It exists on the surface of abdominal organs, in the brain, skin and adipose tissue. The primo vessels can also be found inside a blood vessel and a lymphatic vessel.
And we can detect a number of primo vessels around the cancer tissues.
Among them, I’m studying the primo vascular system in the brain.
There is two primo vascular system detected in brain. One is the primo vascular system which is in the fourth ventricle of the brain, however this is not my research area. The other one exists underneath the superior sagittal sinus, which I’m going to talk you about.
This is the primo vascular system dyed with chromium hematoxylin after the exposure of fourth ventricle of the brain by taking the cerebellum out in the brain of the rabbit.
A primo vessel is too thin and transparent so it is hard to observe by our eyes or microscope.
This is a visualized primo vessel by chromium hematoxylin staining method.
And this is the expanded image. The diameter is only 8~9 micrometer.
You can guess how thin it is from the diameter of hair, 100 micrometer.
And this is the contents of my one year research.
The primo vascular system underneath the superior sagittal sinus was observed for the frist time in the world.
I picked up the dura mater among cranial meninges, and then, I turned it over.
And the primo vessel and primo node are exposed on the superior sagittal sinus in the lower side of the dura mater.
This primo node is the oval-shaped structure of 200~400 micrometer, and a lot of cells are burst inside it.
There are many kinds of immune cells and primo microcells mainly in it.
A branch of a primo vessel was also detected.
This is a picture of fluorescence image of a primo vessel.
DAPI and phalloidin were used for staining nuclei and f-actins in cytoskeleton, respectively.
You can see a vessel-structure here, and identify rod-shaped nuclei of endothelial cells on the wall of the sub-vessel.
In this cross section, you can observe hive-shaped holes of multiple sub-vessels. And you can confirm the structure is clearly different from the structure of an artery and a vein that has only one vessel.
Now, I’ll tell you the function of primo vascular system
Primo vascular system has three main functions: The first is to play role of tissue and cell reproduction with the property of stem cells and the second is to engage in immune system. The last one is function of cancer metastasis.
Since primo microcell is the origin of stem cells, it is considered to do reproduction of aged or degenerated cell and tissue.
According to a recent paper of National Cancer Center (NCC), there are a lot of immune cells existing inside the primo node.
Eosinophils, basophils, macrophages, and mast cellswere observed in the primo node much more than the blood vessel or lymphatic vessel.
This means that primo vascular system can be engaged in the cure or prevention of many diseases and also its pathophysiology.
In the mice which are implanted with tumor tissue, primo vessels were detected more densely near the tumor, just like angiogenesis.
It was detected that cancer metastasis occurred through a primo vessel rather than a blood or lymph vessel.
If the primo vessel provides a path for cancer metastasis, then we can apply some light or electric stimulation on it for preventing or delaying the metastasis.
This is the reason why we have to research about primo vascular system.
The primo vascular system research started from the Korea.
In North Korea, primo vascular system was firstly found in 1960’s, however the research was lost for some reasons.
And early 2000’s, the research has been restarted in the lab of Professor Kwang-Sup Soh at Seoul National University.
Korea is very active and powerful in scientific research, but mainly focused on being the fast-follower. On the other hand, primo vascular system is the research area that we can lead the world.
If the distribution and function of the primo vascular system are confirmed throughout the whole body, it will be a revolution of medicine.
It will be a very important discovery that can change not only medical texts but also biology text on middle and high schools.
Also primo vascular system is expected to do a lot of function inside human body as I mentioned before, so it has possibility to solve the cruces of current medicine.
And many countries such as China and USA have started this research.
Since this research is already started in the country that has money and high technology, and this is the area we have competitiveness and pride, we need to concentrate on the research to secure the leading position.
Until now, I have told about primo vascular system.
Primo vascular system is the research area which is started from Korean medicine.
As I told you before, it starts from the hypothesis that meridian system, which is one of two bases of Korean medicine physiology, has its anatomical substance.
However at the point in time, we don’t have clear evidence that primo vascular system is exactly the meridian system. And we need a lot of research to prove meridian is related with primo vascular system.
Nevertheless, this research is important for scientification of Korean medical because it is reported that primo vascular system exists just at the location of meridian of the body surface.
And some issues of Korean medicine that have not explained by current science could be explained by primo vascular system.
The Korean medicine in the future will be quite different from the one in the past.
Korean herbal medicine, being the main treatment of Korean medicine. It is mixed with multiple herbs based on Korean medical theories, which is different from the compound medicine of western medicine.
Even though the mechanisms of Korean herb medicine in our body is scarcely explained up until now, new studies such as systems biology and bioinformatics may open a new way.
The mechanism how multi-component acts on multi-target and the principles of mixing herbs will be figured out by these studies in the near future.
Acupuncture and moxibustion are another main treatment form of Korean medicine.
Acupuncture and moxibustion is the treatment using the meridian system.
To explain the mechanism of acupuncture and moxibustion, many researches on neurology, endocrinology and immunology are on progress.
Furthermore, there are many researches based on these studies, and especially acupuncture analgesia is.
In the future, these kinds of researches will tell us not only analgesia but also how internal organs are cured by stimulation of body surface.
Also, the primo vascular system, what I’m studying on, is a study to discover the meridian that is stimulated by acupuncture.
Therefore, if the primo vascular system is well confirmed, it will be able to possible to discover new oriental medical treatments using light, electricity or acupuncture stimulation.
Consilience.
Consilience is different from combination which is binding some objects physically and convergence which is making one from two or more objects chemically.
Consilience is to pursue better result with synergy effect on communication and interchange between many things.
In my opinion, nowadays consilience is necessary.
When Korean medicine does consilience with other sciences such as physics, chemistry, biology and engineering, then it can be developed as a more valuable medicine.
The topic of TEDxUNIST is Pi.
Actually, I still have two unstable legs of Korean medicine and life science for being a Pi-type person.
But, I’ll study harder with responsibility, and try to live as a Pi-type person keeping in mind this presentation.
Until now, it was Min-Ho Nam. Thank you.