“Ginkgo Tree Doctor”

The Koryo Medicine Institute under the Koryo Medicine General Hospital has a researcher who is nicknamed a “ginkgo tree doctor”.

She is Mun Sang Mi. She began to be interested in ginkgo tree during her university days.

She came to have a better understanding of the fact that the Korean ancestors valued ginkgo tree and used its nuts and leaves as a precious medicinal material.

She made up her mind to study ginkgo tree, and buckled down to the research after graduation.

According to her, ginkgo nuts are widely used in making expectorant and cough medicine. And ginkgo leaf extract is effective in curing ischemic cerebrovascular diseases and cardiovascular diseases.

She and her colleagues produced medicines conducive to promoting the health of people and made achievements in developing a method of extracting ginkgo leaves.

At present, the Koryo Medicine General Hospital and other hospitals and pharmaceutical factories are producing various kinds of medicines with ginkgo leave extract, which are winning public favour.

Mun Sang Mi was awarded the February 16 Sci-Tech Prize and tens of certificates, including a certificate of registration of sci-tech hits and a certificate of inventions of the DPRK.

Now, she is 64 years old. She is a grandmother with grandsons and granddaughters, but she remains unchanged in her passion for scientific research.