Professional Education
- The Distribution, Chemistry, and Biology of Natural Products
- Touch and movement in medicine: bodywork therapy systems and movement re-education
- The role of meditation and guided imagery in medical practice
- Towards an understanding of Traditional Chinese Medicine: Acupuncture and herbal medicine
- Introduction to Pharmacology
- Botanical, Medicinal and Therapeutic Herbs: A Natural History of Their Use
- Chemical and Pharmacological Aspects of Medicinal Plant Research
- CAM Modalities Course
Training for physicians in clinical research, clinical epidemiology, and integrative medicine
The Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine at Weill Cornell illustrates the core values of multidisciplinary collaboration, innovation, and attention to research methodology that underlie the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine T32 fellowship training programs to train new researchers in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).
The Center provides the methodologic and biostatistical expertise, data analysis and support staff that enable new researchers to investigate specific questions, while assisting those investigators in selecting instruments to measure severity, function, satisfaction, expectations, performance and outcomes. Fellows and other interested investigators apply to enroll in the Master's program in Clinical Epidemiolgy and Health Services Research at the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences.
Master's Program Curriculum
A complete list of courses can be found here.
Professional education course details
The Distribution, Chemistry, and Biology of Natural Products
Course Objectives
- To identify the most important groups of medicinal tropical plants and learn their uses
- To learn the relationship between plant diversity and the most important chemical and biological activities of the plants
- To understand how phylogenetics and ethnobotanical information can be used to enhance the success of bioprospecting
- To be familiar with important and widely used pharmaceuticals that are derived directly or indirectly from sources of natural products
- To understand biochemical extractions of natural drug products
- To understand the use and roles of bioassays in drug discovery
The course was taught in three parts: botany, biochemistry and bioassay. The potential of tropical plants to produce new biomedicines will be explored in depth and various approaches to bioprospecting will be evaluated. The course will be taught as a 14-day field/laboratory course in the Dominican Republic.
Fieldwork and laboratory work will be combined with lectures and seminars. The course will begin with an overview of biodiversity, plant identification, and ethnobotany. Plants will be discussed from the perspective of ethnobotanical and phylogenetic information. The process of biomedicinal evaluation will be explored from biochemical extraction through bioassay using basic extraction and assays of chemical components of tropical plants in cell line cultures. A basic cytotoxicity trial using several normal and cancer cell lines will be undertaken as a model for bioassays. Ongoing studies relating to the discovery of novel natural medicines will be discussed (ethnobotany to combinatorial bioassays) and methods of isolation and structure determination will be covered.
Outcomes
- The students will know the basic methods of plant identification and the major groups of local tropical plants
- They will be introduced to historically important biomedicinals and their uses
- They will also learn basic approaches to extraction and purification of biochemical constituents from plant sources, and the process of screening plant extracts for bioactivity using cell line bioassays.
Touch and movement in medicine: bodywork therapy systems and movement re-education
Course Objectives
- To become familiar with the major techniques of body and movement therapy currently being taught and used in the United States
- To understand the basics of human body mechanics and apply this understanding towards evaluating the relevancy and utility of a particular technique in a medical setting
- To learn the history of the human potential movement in the United States and how this affected the development of the various body and movement therapies
- To have each student directly experience some of the techniques covered in the course
- To understand the similarities among the various systems of movement and body therapy, and gain appreciation for the principles utilized by all of the systems
This course will be an introduction to the major movement and body therapies currently in use in the United States. These include Feldenkrais, Trager, Rosen Method, Yoga, Tai Chi Chuan, Body-Mind Centering, Dance Therapy, Alexander Technique, Rolfing, Massage Therapy, Shiatsu, Pilates, and Conductive Education. The current medical literature as well as other published material will be explored. Each student will gain an intellectual understanding as well as an experiential exposure to the methods. Students will learn basic body therapy and movement skills and practice with each other. This will be a "hands on" course.
Outcomes
- Students will understand and recognize the basics of body mechanics and how to apply them
- Students will have a basic background in the techniques covered and be able to critically evaluate similar methods independently
- Students will recognize the importance of relaxation and self-awareness in the development and maintenance of human health
The role of meditation and guided imagery in medical practice
Course Objectives
- To understand the importance of stress as a general pathogenic process affecting tissue growth and repair, immune response and learning competence
- To learn the four phases of the stress response and the use of models of allostasis and allostatic load as measures of its pathogenic effects
- To understand the importance of stress reduction as a general health-promoting practice supporting tissue growth and repair, immune response and learning competence
- To become familiar with current research and clinical theories concerning the mechanisms and health effects of stress reduction practices such as meditation, and guided imagery
- To become familiar with stress reduction practices including meditation, therapeutic sound, yoga and guided imagery through experiential learning.
This course offers an introduction to the basic theory and practice of mind/body medicine and its potential uses as a self-healing adjunct to complement general medical and surgical care. It draws on fifty years of basic and clinical research on stress and stress reduction, reviewing the current consensus on the mechanisms linking cognitive, affective and behavioral responses to stress with general factors in health and illness such as autonomic self-regulation, metabolism, tissue growth and repair, immune response and learning competence. It uses the current consensus on stress and stress-reduction as a paradigm for understanding the importance of patient (and physician) self-care in medical research and practice. The mechanisms and health effects of mind/body practices such as meditation, yoga, therapeutic sound and guided imagery will be taught cognitively through lecture discussion as well as practically through experiential learning.
Outcomes
- Students will know the importance, mechanisms and effects of stress and stress-reduction and understand their relevance to medical practice
- They will be familiar with mind/body medicine as a complementary medical approach emphasizing the key role of self-care in health and illness
- They will have intellectual and practical familiarity the basic theories and methods of mind/body self-healing through meditation, yoga, therapeutic sound and guided imagery
Towards an understanding of Traditional Chinese Medicine: Acupuncture and herbal medicine
This course covers the fundamentals of acupuncture and Traditional Chinese herbal medicine and how these approaches relate to Western biomedical models. In particular, students are introduced to the doctrine of systematic correspondences and the polyparadigmatic practice of acupuncture. Channel theory is taught with regard to acupuncture, and the search for a modern neuroanatomic understanding is discussed. Methods stressing Five Element Theory and others emphasizing empirical point combinations are reviewed, while fellows learn about the eight principles (Yin-Yang, Hot-Cold, Interior-Exterior, and Full-Empty) governing Traditional Chinese Herbal medicine. Robert Schulman, MD, teaches this course.
Introduction to Pharmacology
This course begins with basic principles of pharmacology, including absorption, distribution and biotransformation of drugs, pharmacokinetics (general concepts and computer modeling), pharmacogenetics, including adverse drug reactions, the cytochrome p-450 family, drug binding to receptors, receptor superfamilies and effectors systems, gene therapy (DNA and antisense and ribozymes). The second module would focus on drug development Ð strategies, approaches and problems, including multi-drug resistance, antibiotics, enzyme kinetics and mechanism based inhibitors, combinatorial libraries and high throughout screening, intellectual property patents and biotechnology, and drug evaluation through clinical trials. This course includes selected lectures from the Graduate school course "Introduction to Pharmacological Principles."
Botanical, Medicinal and Therapeutic Herbs: A Natural History of Their Use
Botanical sources have and continue to play a keystone role in the development of modern medicine, pharmacy, and the study of pharmacology. This course examines the natural history of medicinal plant use with a focus on plant chemistry as the primary criteria for ethnomedical selection. Modern strategies of plant selection for study are emphasized including chemotaxonomic, phylogenetic, ethnobotanical, chemical ecological, and high throughput random pharmacological screening. These topics frame the discussion of intellectual property rights and ecological conservation as well as current FDA regulations on dietary supplements and their impact on the current herbal commercial market. Lastly, using the communities of NYC as an ethnobotanical field laboratory, community specific medicinal plant traditions are documented including the botanical identity of preparations (where possible) and the intended medicinal uses.
Chemical and Pharmacological Aspects of Medicinal Plant Research
This course focuses on the biosynthesis, chemosystematics, distribution, isolation, standardization, and pharmacological evaluation of plant secondary compounds (flavonoids, alkaloids, cyanogenic glycosides, sesquiterpenoids, amides, phenolics, and phenylpropanoids). Complex mixtures of natural products in common herbal and botanical preparations are examined and their chemistry, evaluated based on TLC and HPLC data collection. Methods of isolation, standardization, and evaluation of bioactivity are covered in the laboratory setting. Where possible, connections are made between the structure-activity relationships of chemical class, chemosystematic distribution, and therapeutic/pharmacologic indications.
CAM Modalities Course
The objective of this course is to provide trainees with a basic familiarity with additional components of CAM. A major emphasis of the course will be energy yoga, yoga, homeopathy, massage and other therapies not previously covered in specific courses. The course will review alternative medical systems developed by various cultures, such as traditional Indian or Native American medicine. The course is intended to give Fellows an understanding of the breadth of the field of complementary and alternative medicine.
