**7. Conclusions and future directions**

Our study has revealed a paradoxical immunomodulatory effect of AQ and PS extracts isolated from Ontario-grown *Panax quinquefolius*. This activity may be relevant to clinical application involving bacterial infection and toxemia. Challenges in development of botanical polysaccharides for clinical application include lack of methodology for structure identification and characterization, isolation and purification, and product quality control, has been recognized [11]. Our research will focus on the application of new methodologies to characterize the polysaccharide structures from ginseng and to elucidate the structurebiological activity relationship.
