Elsevier, an analytics company focused on science and healthcare, will join forces with Beijing University of Chinese Medicine in China to add taxonomies related to "traditional Chinese medicine" to its biomedical literature database, the company announced Feb. 26.
During a six-month collaboration, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine will build a detailed taxonomy of terms and data related to traditional Chinese medicine in Embase, Elsevier's biomedical literature database. The organizations' goal for the project is to enable researchers to search for and retrieve relevant evidence on various compounds.
Officials expect the taxonomies will go live in Embase in early 2019. Together with clinical research already housed in Embase, Elsevier officials hope analysis of integrated information will provide researchers with insight into how traditional Chinese medicine might complement conventional medicine.
"The trend in the use of traditional and complementary medicine is growing globally," said Cameron Ross, managing director of life science solutions at Elsevier. "In response to these market demands and the expectations of our customers, we are working with BUCM to build a taxonomy for Chinese medicine that will help our clients examine specific TCM practices from a scientific perspective."