Established in honor of and in cooperation with American Nobel Laureate Ferid Murad, the center will focus on research and innovation on the application of TCM.

Murad won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1998 for his discovery of nitric oxide as a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system, which directly resulted in the development of Viagra, a drug for treating male sexual impotence.

Now director of the Department of Integrative Biology, Pharmacology and Physiology at the Texas Medical School at Houston, Murad is upbeat about TCM's development potential.

Having been granted an honorary professorship at the Shanghai university, Murad said he would promote exchanges and the establishment of joint programs between the university and his university.

(Xinhua News Agency February 17, 2003)