1. Name of the centre

The Institute had received funds from the 'Korea Science and Engineering Foundation' on September 2000 as a government research project, which is a 3-year program. The research result of first year is as follows;

Title : Effects of acupuncture on alterations of immune responses evoked by hypothalamus lesions
Primary Investigator : Byung-Il Mim, MD. PhD,
Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, Kyung Hee University

To investigate effects of acupuncture and moxibustion on modulation of immune responses induced by lateral hypothalmic lesions, We made electrical lesions bilaterally (2mA, 15sec) on the lateral parts (2.0mm posterior to the bregma, 2.0mm laterally to the midline of the brain (or to the bregma), and 8.4mm in depth from the surface of the skull) of the hypothalmus of Spraque-Dawley rats (250-300g, age 6-8 weeks). These operations were also performed on a sham operation group without making any lesion. Lesioned rats were divided into 3 groups, and each group consisted of 9 rats. The first lesioned group was treated with moxibustion once a day (0.5mg moxibustion, three times per treatment) in the holder. The second lesioned group was treated with acupuncture once a day (1Hz, 0.25ms, 1-5V, 20min) in the holder. The third lesioned group was untreated (with only holder stress). The sham operation group was also included in this experiment
without any treatment (only with holder stress). In order to investigate time- dependent immune responses, 3 rats from each group were sacrificed on the 3rd, 13th, and 23rd days of treatments. The NK cell activity of each group was measured using 51Cr release immunoassay. T and B cell proliferation were measured using 3H- thymidine incorporation method. In rats sacrificed on the 3rd, 23rd days, the difference in NK cell activity and T and B cell proliferation between 4 groups was not significant. In rats sacrificed on the 13th day, NK cell activity and T and B cell proliferation in the lesioned, untreated group were markedly lower than that of sham operation group.
The moxibustion or acupuncture treatments in lesioned group significantly increase NK cell activity and T and B cell proliferation compared with lesioned control group. These results strongly suggest that acupuncture and moxibustion boost immune responses, and this effect is not mediated by lateral part of hypothalamus.

This work was supported by grant No.2000-2-21300-009-3 from the Basic Research Program of the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation.

(3) Growth hormone effects on the transcription factors concerned to fat cell differentiation.

In clinical studies, we developed optimal East-West medical therapeutic models at the East-West Rheumatoid Center, East-West Spine Center and East-West Pain Clinic. In basic research, we developed several herbal drugs for controlling pain and stroke under the cooperation among medicine, oriental medicine and pharmacology.

The Institute received fund from the 'Korea Research Foundation' in October 2001 as a new government research project, which is a 6-year program. The title of this project is ‘The Study of East-West Medicine on Pain control’, and principle investigator of this project is professor Jin-Woo Kim, head of this institute.

This project is composed of two teams; The first is ‘Development of East-West Medical Therapeutic Model’ directed by Yun-Ho Lee, professor of College of Oriental Medicine. The second is ‘Development of East-West Medical Pain-control Method’ directed by Sabina Lim, professor of the College of Oriental Medicine. The grant is $150,000 from government and $75,000 from university. The purpose of this project is as follows;

The first team aims are ① Development of east-west medical pain-control model at the East-West Arthritis Center ② Development of east-west medical therapeutic models at the East-West Pain Clinic. The second team aims are ① Development of drugs for arthritis ② Development of herbal medicine for control of neuropathic pain ③ Development of cure system of non-invasive ultrasound meridian point.