iSMART: an integrated cloud computing web server for traditional Chinese medicine for online virtual screening, de novo evolution and drug design.

Traditional medicines and herbal medicines, while having different approaches from conventional western medicine, have been recognized worldwide for their therapeutic values. The 2003 World Health Assembly (WHA) has enlisted traditional medicine as one of the major health care issues. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2002-2005 Traditional Medicine Strategy reported that the traditional medicine industry worldwide has a net value of over $60 billion US dollars, and was still increasing. Particularly, Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which is a vast knowledge bank of 5000-year medical practices, played an important role among traditional medicine. In Eastern World, TCM never ceased its popularity and influence among the society. Recent global TCM and herbal medicine have market values of approximately $20 billion in US dollar, have annual growth rate of 10-20%. Moreover, TCM user population is also increasing at 20% annual growth rate. In addition, the “WHO International Standard Terminologies on Traditional Medicine in the Western Pacific Region” has published standard translation of over 3,000 TCM terminologies for medical practice and scientific researches. Despite the increased documented importance of TCM, studies in TCM drug discovery remained a minor part of pharmaceutical researches.