A woman with the passion for herbs

01/18/2022

A Danish poet once said: "It is impossible to exist without passion". When we have passion, we will have enthusiasm, devote wholeheartedly in work and study, so we can make the best use of our capacity to achieve success. Thanks to their passion, scientific researchers have overcome difficulties and failures to bring great scientific achievements to mankind. The same goes for Dr. Pharmacist Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tram, the burning passion she always carries in her heart is her lifelong dedication to science. It is with that passion that she has worked, researched and devoted herself tirelessly to the development of the pharmaceutical industry in general and Vietnamese herbal medicine in particular.
The source of passion
Dr. Pharmacist Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tram was born in Nghe An in a confucian family. Her father is Professor . Doctor of Science. Hero of Labor Nguyen Van Truong - former Editoral Director of Vietnam Encyclopedia, Director of the Institute of Ecological Economics. Her mother is a descendant of the famous poet Nguyen Cong Tru. Because of that, she has inherited the tradition of studiousness and intelligence from her family. The example of her father who was always passionate about research, along with the first lessons learned in his father's stories about Vietnamese scientists and herbal species have formed and nurtured her passion for herbal research throughout her life.
When she was just 24 years old, Dr. Tram was known to the scientific community for her first work "Extracting essential oils from lemon basil" to prepare cough medicine for children. After that, she went on research during her  PhD study at University of Chemical EngineeringSofia, Bulgaria. In 1990, she successfully defended her doctoral thesis "Research on chemical composition of Vietnamese cardamom essential oil", determining the composition and structure of 45 compounds present in cardamom essential oil, she was then retained by herUniversity as a teaching assistant and later became a collaborator of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. For many years, she had to live far from her family, away from her husband and children, and faced with many difficulties and hardships abroad, but she was still steadfast in her dream of doing science.


Charmed by the Crinum Latifolium L.
Immediately after returning home, Dr. Tram embarked on a tireless journey with the study of Vietnamese herbs. Starting in the 1990s, on her way to searching for natural herbs to treat tumor diseases, she was fortunate to come across an herb called Crinum Latifolium L. As destined by heaven, Dr. Tram was passionate and devoted all her time, mind and effort to researching and exploiting the uses of this precious medicinal herb.
In 2005, the Science and Technology Council of the Ministry of Health accepted the research topic of Dr. Pharmacist Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tram for Crila which was extracted from a new species of Vietnamese Crinum Latifolium L, with an efficiency of 89,18% on prostate enlargement. By 2007, Crila was added to the treatment of uterine fibroids with an efficiency of 79,5%.
Dr. Tram's research work has been granted an intellectual property license and brought her to the 2007 Kovalevskaia Prize - a noble award for female scientists with outstanding achievements in research and practical application in life - which brings many benefits in the fields of economy - society and culture. In 2012, she was honored to be awarded the State Prize in Science and Technology by the State President.
The famous television channelAmerican Healing Quest made a television program about her and the research cluster of the CrinumLatifolium L, then broadcast it throughout the US, UK, Canada, ... attracting the attention of the science field and audiences around the world.
Continuing the passion for scientific research
Not stopping at the research on Crinum Latifolium L., she continued to search from Vietnamese herbal medicine for new substances with biological effects to treat hemorrhoids in precious medicinal herbs in Vietnam. Since the 2000s, Dr. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tram has discovered the effects of amaranth and purslane in the treatment of hemorrhoids. The product launched has outlined a new direction in the treatment of hemorrhoids by using new medicinal ingredients such as purslane and amaranth, because ancient remedies as well as books on medicinal herbs have not been written about the ability of amaranth to treat hemorrhoids, but only folk remedies mention about the ability of purslane ingredientsto cool the body and treat constipation.
The product has been clinically tested in three stages according to the Decision of the Ministry of Health at the Hanoi Medical University Hospital, the Central Hospital of Traditional Medicine and the Traditional Medicine Hospital of the Ministry of Public Security. The product has been studied for a long time in terms of botany, biological effects, extraction, preparation and clinical, so it has many outstanding points compared to other products on the market.
Currently, even though she has turned sixty years old, Dr. Tram still has not allowed herself to rest. Day by day, she continues to maintain her passion for science to carry out her responsibilities for the country's pharmaceutical industry and continue to devote herself for the community’s health.