Chun-Su Yuan, MD & PhD, Director

Dr. Chun-Su Yuan is the Cyrus Tang Professor in the Department of Anesthesia & Critical Care, Pritzker School of Medicine, and Director of the Tang Center for Herbal Medicine Research, University ofChicago. Since 1994, Dr. Yuan has been at the University of Chicago conducting clinical trials for new drug development, especially methylnaltrexone for opioid bowel dysfunction. Based on his groups’ study, the University of Chicago licensed methylnaltrexone to pharmaceutical industry in 2001. This novel compound was approved by the U.S. FDA in 2008.  By 2015, this drug was approved for use in over 60 countries worldwide. Dr. Yuan’s another major field of investigation is complementary and integrative medicine, especially natural product research. He has over 300 publications related to botanicals and new drug development.  Dr. Yuan served as the primary editor of the Textbook of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (1st and 2nd editions). In addition, Dr. Yuan is the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Chinese Medicine, the oldest complementary and integrative medicine journal in the U.S.

Dr. Yuan co-founded AlterMed in 2006.