An initial $17.9 million, three-year grant from the Marcus Foundation is enabling two HMS researchers to build a library of authenticated and contaminant-free botanical extracts, which will be analyzed and manipulated in a new medicinal chemistry laboratory along with other natural products. The goal is to characterize herbs used in traditional Asian medicine and to create new biological probes for basic medicinal science, as well as to maximize the possibility of creating new treatments based on medicinal herbs.
David Eisenberg and Jon Clardy—with co-investigators at several research centers, including the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine—will systematically authenticate, screen, and characterize the botanicals to ensure purity of the specimens that are kept in the library and used in the new facility for medicinal chemistry, the Marcus Natural Product Laboratory.
“Our aim is to leverage state-of-the-science technologies to systematically evaluate commonly used medicinal herbs. We want to strategically assess their effects on biological systems and explore their potential to be used as reproducible therapeutic interventions,” said Eisenberg, the Bernard Osher associate professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The head of the Marcus Foundation, Home Depot cofounder Bernard Marcus, is a trained pharmacist with a special interest in the therapeutic potential of herbs and other dietary supplements, Eisenberg said.
In 2005, Eisenberg was a key member of the National Academy of Sciences committee that issued the seminal report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on complementary and alternative medicine use in the United States. The report noted the growing popularity of dietary supplements—including vitamins and herbal products—as well as the lack of consistency and quality in these materials. To determine the clinical effectiveness of these products, the IOM called for them to be held to the same scientifically rigorous standards as conventional medical treatments.
In addition to embracing the IOM’s recommendations for rigorous scientific research on botanicals and other natural products, the two Marcus Foundation–sponsored projects will help advance translational research at HMS, a strategic priority of Dean Jeffrey Flier. All researchers and students at HMS and its affiliates will have access to the resources of the library and to the medicinal chemistry laboratory.
Ideally, this access will help foster a community of scientists interested in natural products and their potential role in alleviating human suffering caused by disease, said Clardy, HMS professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology, whose laboratory focuses on biologically active small molecules and their interactions with larger molecules.
“With these two new projects, we are embarking on an interesting and innovative line of inquiry,” Clardy said. “I think the laboratory could be catalytic.”
