Originally published October 10 2005
Maryland lab explores alternative avenues for future medicine
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Created by John Ives, director of basic science at the institute, Samueli Basic Science Laboratory in Germantown is on a two-year lease from Avalon Pharmaceuticals and plans to use its time to explore alternative and complementary forms of medicine.
Researchers in the shiny new Samueli Basic Science Laboratory in Germantown say they face the big task of using state-of-the-art science to validate alternative medicine techniques.
At an invitation-only ribbon-cutting ceremony last month, Susan Samueli, chief benefactor and founder of the nonprofit Samueli Institute of Irvine, Calif., declared that the laboratory will help meet a great need to learn why and how complementary and alternative forms of medicine are effective in curing and preventing diseases.
The 2,000-square-foot laboratory, operating on a two-year renewable lease from Avalon Pharmaceuticals, was conceived by John Ives, biologist and the institute's director of basic science.
Potential markets may be big for any new products that may be spawned by studies of alternative medical practices, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda.
''I would agree that alternatives are growing," said Roberta Lee, director of the Continuing Center for Health and Healing, associated with Beth Israel Medical Center in New York.
Also in favor of the Samueli effort to apply modern science to alternative medicine is David Jones, president of the nonprofit Institute for Functional Medicine in Gig Creek, Wash., who said there is a major disconnect between patient needs today and the American medical system.
The Samueli research will focus on projects that the NIH alternative medicine center does not fund or want to tackle, he said, such as uncovering why homeopathy does or doesn't work.
Gold says the argument against homeopathy is that the treatment substance can become diluted to less than one molecule in water.
That argument against homeopathy is absurd, according to Rustum Roy,a Pennsylvania State University professor of materials.
Laboratory chief Leda M. Cummings, is a former genomic researcher at the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville and at NIH.
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