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Management Program for Specimen Information Database (MPSID) is using by Korean Herbarium of Standard Herbal Resources at Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine. This software was coded in PHP language, it provides user-friendly web interface, and it shows information of specimen collecting location visually using SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format map data. This system is different to general GIS (Geographic Information System), but it is helpful to get the collecting locations for user. In this article, visualization method of MPSID for collecting locations was introduced.

Dioscoreae Nipponicae Rhizoma (Dioscorea nipponica Makino) and Dioscoreae Quinquelobatae Rhizoma (Dioscorea quinquelobata Thunb.) are perennial rhizome plants, which belong to Dioscoreaceae family and Dioscorea genus has been used widely in Korean herbal medicines. Its herbological effects were registered in ‘The dictionary of Chinese crude drugs’ and some pharmacopoeias. In this report, characteristics of chemical and morphological keys between D. nipponica and D. quinquelobata were provided. For future study of D. nipponica and D. quinquelobata, this study will be required of more analytical studies about different location, seasonal collection, commercial collection, and microscopy.

Traditionally, herbal medicines have been used as alternative medicines in the West and the East. Future studies about herbal medicine will be required of sufficient database searching. 3P(Paper, Patent, and Product) analysis will be a useful method. To improve new research about herbal medicine, 3P analysis was performed by paper analysis using SCOPUS database (DB), patent analysis using FOCUST DB, and product analysis using FROST & SULLIVAN DB. Up to date, 32,233 numbers of paper, 5,133 numbers of patent, and 96 numbers of product were found by 3P analysis. Those informations could help understanding about past, current, and future of research in herbal medicines. Therefore, a variety of 3P analysis could provide the status of research and future information to reduce failure risk in R&D of herbal medicines.

Yams (San-yak: Dioscoreae Rhizoma) are perennial rhizome plants, which belong to Dioscoreaceae family and Dioscorea genus has been used widely in Korean herbal medicines. They can provide for functional foods and promoting human health. The herbal medicine origin of Dioscoreae Rhizoma in Korea was described by the Korean Pharmacopoeia 10th Edition (2012). Several species of yams have been cultivated national widely in Korea. Especially, the cultivation status in Sancheong area and morphological characteristics information were provided in this report. Therefore, Dioscoreae rhizoma as Korean herbal medicine (San-yak) was used to introduce and to emphasize. A variety of yam species for production might improve future yam breeding programs and direction.

The purpose of present study was investigated for the medicinal herbs in Mt. Gaji (Gyeongnam province). The list of Data Base was built by research papers and herbological books were published at Korea and China. The list was made about the medicinal herbs of Mt. Gaji (Gyeongnam province) and identified as 312 taxa in total, including 98 families. Out of those, 137 plants were found in official compendium, 40 plants in KP (Korean Pharmacopoeia), 77 plants in KHP (Korean Herbal Pharmacopoeia), 68 plants in CP (Chinese Pharmacopoeia), 35 plants in JP (Japanese Pharmacopoeia).

This study was carried out to investigate the pesticide residues in commercial medicinal herbs in Korea in 2013. Among a total of 105 samples of 10 different kinds of herbs, 65 samples (10 Kinds) were domestic, and 40 samples (9 Kinds) were imported. To establish pesticide residues (Aldrin, BHC isomer, DDD, DDE, DDT, Dieldrin, Endrin) in commercial herbal medicines, chromatographic equipment was used with the gas chromatography-mass detector for qualitative analysis. The residual pesticides were not founded in both imported and domestic samples.

Accurate authentication of herbal drugs is always required to distinguish the official herbal medicine from intentional and inadvertent adulteration with other plant species. Morphological and histochemical authentication are usually applied but they are not precise enough to authenticate these herbal materials which are possibly substituted or adulterated by plants with similar shapes and tissue structure. Therefore, molecular authentication methods were developed from DNA manipulation techniques including comparative analysis of molecular markers and sequencing of specified genes has been applied to the authentication of medicinal materials. To authenticate the origin of diverse herbal types for Cynanchi Wilfordii Radix (Baekshuoh in Korean and Beishuwu in Chinese) in species levels, we applied SCAR markers using multiplex-PCR. The multiplex-SCAR amplifications was provided by a key tools for the identification of correct species in varied herbal materials of Baekshuoh. Therefore, a well-established molecular discrimination marker is a rapid, reliable, and efficient method for the identification of medicinal plant species and the standardization of inauthentic herbal medicines.

The standards of medicinal herbs are provided differently in each nations. So the dissimilarity of the standards should be verified for the standardization of medicinal herbs. The requirements of ‘polygala root’ were compared among the Korean Pharmacopoeia (KP), the Japanese Pharmacopoeia (JP), Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China (ChP), Taiwan Herbal Pharmacopeia (THP), Hong Kong Chinese Materia Medica Standards (HCS), and the Pharmacopoeia of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DP). There were different requirements of polygala root among the pharmacopoeias, such as the origin, morphological description, identification, purity, ash content, extract content, loss on drying, and the assay. The differences of standards among northeast-asian countries should be investigated thoroughly in terms of efficacy and safety. This study would be a helpful reference for the revision of the regulation on herbal medicine.