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One of China's first modern pharmacological researchers of Eucommia, who published a 1956 paper on its toxicity and experimental antihypertensive therapy

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Jin Guozhang (1927–2019), a native of Yongkang, Zhejiang, graduated from the Department of Pharmacy, College of Science, Zhejiang University in 1952 and was assigned to the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences. As a new member of Professor Ding Guangsheng's research team, he participated in antihypertensive drug research and in 1956 published two papers in the same issue of Acta Physiologica Sinica—one on the antihypertensive effect of Veratrum and one on the toxicity and experimental therapy of Eucommia—the latter being among China's earliest studies of Eucommia using modern experimental pharmacology.

The study conducted subacute toxicity tests of Eucommia decoction in rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, and dogs, and administered the decoction by gavage to three renal hypertensive dogs for four consecutive weeks to observe antihypertensive effects. It concluded that Eucommia has very low toxicity at therapeutic doses and a mild antihypertensive action, providing the earliest modern pharmacological basis for later research on Eucommia for hypertension and the development of Eucommia tea.

Milestones

• Appointed assistant researcher at the Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in May 1956; his Eucommia paper was published in Acta Physiologica Sinica in December of that year
• Transferred from the hypertension group to the neuropharmacology group in the summer of 1956, beginning his research on Corydalis yanhusuo
• In July 2007, the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, CAS, held a neuroscience symposium in honor of his 80th birthday

Key Contributions

• In 1956, co-authored with Ding Guangsheng 'Studies on Drugs for the Treatment of Hypertension—II. Toxicity and Experimental Therapy of the Chinese Drug Eucommia' in Acta Physiologica Sinica, Vol. 20, No. 4
• First to systematically evaluate the antihypertensive effect and subacute toxicity of Eucommia decoction using a renal hypertensive dog model, confirming its very low toxicity
• The paper was one of the first two academic papers of his career and among the earliest research outputs of the pharmacology laboratory at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica
• Later renowned for his research on the dopamine pharmacology of Corydalis yanhusuo; elected Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2001 and received the Ho Leung Ho Lee Prize in 2002