**About the Editors**

### **Juei-Tang Cheng**

Prof. Dr. Juei-Tang Cheng specializes in drug research from bench to bedside. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Shizuoka in Japan. He then returned to his hometown to focus on teaching systemic pharmacology to students. He also wrote a pharmacology textbook in Chinese. He was appointed full professor at National Cheng Kung University's College of Medicine in 1988. He was the supervisor of 46 Masters of Science dissertations and the director of 9 Ph.D. theses at this university. Then, he was invited to Chang Jung Christian University as Chair-Professor for lectures and research development.

He has extensive experience researching herbal products. He was the first to discover that guava is effective to reverse hyperglycemia in diabetic patients and animals, and he has numerous publications on the effect of herbal products on diabetic disorders. In addition, he conducted collaborative research with clinicians to focus on cardiovascular disorders that are improved by herbal products. Thus, in 1997, he was awarded a fellowship by the American College of Clinical Pharmacology. He has previously published 468 papers in prestigious international journals such as *Diabetes* and *Diabetology*.

Prof. Cheng likes to assist with the review of scientific paper. He has served on the editorial boards of numerous international journals. He has also served as Academic Editor of *PLOS One*, Associate Editor of *Life Sciences*, and is currently the Associate Editor of *Front. Pharmacol.* Aside from that, he was named Best Reviewer by *Japan Journal of Pharmacology* and *Journal of Ethnopharmacology*.

### **I-Min Liu**

Prof. Dr. I-Min Liu, Traditional Chinese medicine expresses its meaning through the foundation of ancient and classic Chinese scientific knowledge. Because of the different times and spaces, it is often impossible to be understood and recognized by modern science, so it is necessary to modernize traditional Chinese medicine. Professor Liu's research focuses on the prevention and treatment of diabetes complications to improve patients' quality of life, briefly described below.

In the research plan funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan in 2020, Professor Liu referred to the second edition of the Collection of Native Herbal Medicines of Taiwan and cooperated with the PubMed online database to select indigenous herbal medicines with potential for research and clinical application to investigate the effectiveness of improvement of diabetes-related microvascular diseases. The results of this plan may serve as a benchmark for the Government of Taiwan to promote the cultivation of Chinese medicinal plants to increase the proportion of self-production and self-use and reduce dependency on imported traditional Chinese medicine.

Professor Liu implemented a research project to explore the efficacy and mechanism of Chinese herbal medicine for clearing heat, promoting blood circulation, and removing blood stasis in relieving diabetic small vessel disease. It is found that heat-releasing herbal medicines, such as *Lycii Cortex* and *Gentiana formosana* Hayata, have antioxidant effects, reducing oxidative stress caused by a high glucose concentration. These medicinal plants have been shown to reduce the inflammatory response associated with the NF-kB transcription factor, thereby preventing damage to retinal cells caused by persistent hyperglycemia. The results confirm that some Chinese herbs are helpful for the complications of diabetes, and research and development of new plant drugs are possible.

### **Szu-Chuan Shen**

Prof. Dr. Szu-Chuan Shen was born in 1967. In 1991 and 1993, he graduated from Department of Food Science in National Chung-Hsing University, Taiwan, for Bachelor's and Master's degree, respectively. In 2004, he completed his Ph.D. degree from the Institute of Food Science and Technology in National Taiwan University, Taiwan.

He has work experiences serve as a senior research and development scientist in the biggest food company (Uni-President Enterprises Corp., Tainan) in Taiwan for more than five years after he received his Master's degree.

At present, he is Professor and deputy Chair of the Undergraduate and Graduate Programs of Nutrition Science in National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan. He was currently supervisor of 5 Bachelors and 4 Masters of Science Dissertations in this University.

Prof. Shen's research interest and expert field is health function and therapy of food resource/natural materials on curing or preventing human diseases, such as diabetes mellitus, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, dementia, etc. For example, diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the research subject in his laboratory, he investigated the hypoglycemia effect of economic fruits in Taiwan, such as guava (*Psidium guajava* Linn.) and wax apple (*Syzygium samarangense* (Blume) Merrill and Perry), propose the possible mechanisms and evaluate the feasibility for using them as a raw material in the making of anti-diabetes medicine or health food. He has published more than 50 papers in international peer-reviewed journals, such as *J. Food Sci.*, *J. Agric. Food Chem.*, *Phytother. Res.*, *J. Func. Food*, *Nutrients*, *Food Res. Inter.*, *Food Sci. & Nutr.*, *Antioxidants*, *Evid.-Based Complementary Altern. Med.*, *Front. Aging Neurosci.*, *Food Chem.*, *Plants*, *Int. J. Mol. Sci.*, etc., and more than 100 conference reports, as well as 3 book chapters of Wiley Blackwell.
