Potential functional ingredients from Tiger Milk Mushroom

• Main Authors: Tan, C.S., Ng, S.T., Yeannie Yap, H.Y., Lee, S.S, Lee, M.L., Fung, S.Y.
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: RA Public aspects of medicine
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/17100/1/All.pdf; http://eprints.um.edu.my/17100/

Tiger Milk Mushroom (also known as" cendawan susu rimau (Harimau)." Lignosus rhinocertis), hailed as Malaysia's national treasure has been used as a medicinal mushroom since 1664 by local communities to treat asthma, fever, cough, cold, sinusitis, cancer, food poisoning, for wound healing and as general tonic. In 2002, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad mentioned in his speech at BioMalaysia that his chronic cough was cured by a local mushroom called "cendawan susu rimau (Harimau)." Despite its high medicinal values, little attempts had been made to study it, due the very limited supply as it can only be wild collected from the forest by chance, hence hindering the discovery of its full potential for health and economical benefits. We have now successfully cultivated the mushroom in the controlled environment producing high yield. Our success in inducing the information of sclerotia which eventually led to development of stem and formation of the mushroom cup in no small feat. This paper reports the research and development journey of the Lignosus rhinocerotis cultivar development for the past 10 years, its safety and efficacy investigations as part of attempt to validate the medicinal benefits and ethno-botanical claims of Tiger Milk Mushroom.