菟丝子是一味重要的传统中草药,常用以治疗脾肾虚泻、胎动不安、目昏耳鸣、腰膝酸软、白癜风等症状。鉴于目前菟丝子的研究资料较为有限,制约其药用价值的深度开发,本文就菟丝子已知药用活性成分的结构特点、品质鉴定、质量控制、提纯合成、以及药理学研究等多个方面的进展作简要综述,同时论述了现代系统生物学技术方法给菟丝子等中药研发带来的新机遇,为加速菟丝子药用价值的综合开发提供参考。 Dodder is an important traditional Chinese herbal medicine, and commonly used to treat spleen deficiency diarrhea, fetal irritability, dizziness and tinnitus, soreness and weakness of waist and knees, vitiligo and other symptoms. The development of dodder’s medicinal value is restricted due to its limited research data at the moment. This paper briefly reviewed dodder research progress on many fronts, such as the structure characteristics of its known active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), quality evaluation and control, purification and synthesis of APIs, and pharmacological study. The recent technology advances in systems biology are also discussed here, which offer the opportunity to further development of dodder and other traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), thereby to provide references for accelerating comprehensive development of dodder’s medicinal value.