MTSU explores Chinese herbal teas, medicines

MURFREESBORO — MTSU has launched a program to identify the medicinal compounds in Chinese herbal teas and convert them into pill form in hopes of developing a blockbuster drug.

The initiative is a partnership with the Guangxi Botanical Garden of Medicinal Plants. It gives MTSU shared patent rights in the United States and Europe to any drug discoveries.

While herbs have been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries, mysteries remain about how many of them work. Unlocking that mystery is crucial to putting the medicines into pill form.

“In China, they’ve got no trouble drinking teas or tea-like substances. … No matter how bad it tastes, they will drink it,” said Elliot Altman, who heads MTSU’s new molecular biosciences Ph.D. program.

“That doesn’t fly in the West. We are not about to drink some nasty concoction because it is going to be good for our health. We want a pill.”

The university is in the midst of creating the Tennessee Center for Botanical Medicine Research at MTSU. The center is now limited to research laboratories, but MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee envisions gardens and spin-off pharmaceutical companies employing state residents and even generating millions of dollars for the school.

McPhee forged the agreement on relationships he has built with Chinese leaders over several years. When the vice governor of Guangxi province was in the United States last year, he arranged a meeting with Gov. Bill Haslam.

Pharmaceutical corporations have already expressed interest in the program, McPhee said.

“My preference would be really to have the state have the major stake in this as opposed to a pharmaceutical company because of the potential revenue down the road this could create,” he said.

While financial rewards can be great from licensing a blockbuster drug, the research, development and clinical trials can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. University foundations can receive money from drug discoveries regardless of who funds them. The University of Tennessee Research Foundation has received money when pharmaceutical companies have sponsored research into discoveries by the UT Health Science Center in Memphis.

Bill & Sheila’s A-Z of herbs
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