Allied-Bristol Life Sciences, a joint venture between the university commercialization specialist Allied Minds and the US pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb, is licensing research carried out by Malcolm Whitman on halofuginone, an active ingredient in blue evergreen hydrangea root. The Whitman Lab had showed several years ago that halofuginone could block the development of TH17-driven autoimmunity in a mouse model of multiple sclerosis by activating the amino acid response (AAR) pathway. They subsequently showed that halofuginone binds glutamyl-prolyl-tRNA synthetase (EPRS), which inhibits prolyl-tRNA synthetase activity; this inhibition of EPRSunderlies the broad bioactivities of this family of natural product derivatives. Now, Allied-Bristol Life Sciences is hoping to use this research to develop drugs to treat multipes types of autoimmune diseases.
To learn more, see: http://www.businessinsider.com/allied-bristol-life-sciences-license-harvard-research-on-chinese-medicine-the-blue-hydrangea-root-2015-6#ixzz3fDOEveuG