The John S. McIlhenny Laboratory of Botanical Research is devoted to the discovery and development of natural product-based pharmaceutical agents that may prove valuable in the treatment of the pre-diabetic state, i.e. the “metabolic syndrome”, and for treatment of diabetes per se.

Currently, in order to determine the effectiveness of a promising agent or other agent, the agent needs to be tested repeatedly in animals, and then after careful examination, the agent is tested in various phases of human research. The animal testing may reveal that the agent is toxic or not effective, and then the agent is not further evaluated. If it makes it to human testing, it may be found that it causes too many adverse side effects or may not be effective. Unfortunately, the vast majority of promising agents advanced in this way do not make it to clinical testing.

This process is quite lengthy and expensive. However, a “pre-clinical” system that utilizes human tissues in the laboratory will be able to greatly expedite the process and target promising chemicals and compounds. The laboratory utilizes tissue culture systems and integrates wide-ranging, state-of-the-art, multiple-target screening with powerful structural and analytical approaches designed to characterize and develop therapeutic and natural agents produced by plants and fungi. This laboratory serves to provide data on each botanical agent so that seed funding can be obtained to fund additional clinical research on these particular botanicals in the future.