by Glinda Watts, RH (AHG)
David S. Pasco, Ph.D. is the Assistant Director of the National Center for Natural Product Research at the University of Mississippi and is principal investigator for two grants from NIH/NCCAM to study melanin and its immuno-stimulatory activity within three Echinacea species; E. angustifolia, E. pupurea, and E. pallida. The research described here has been published in International Immunopharmacology 5 (2005) 637-647.
Watts: Was your NIH grant specifically to study melanin?
Pasco: Yes, specifically the melanin in echinacea. We wanted to study echinacea source material from all over the country to see how much variarion in melanin activity we could find. We analyzed many different echinacea products looking for melanin. So far, melanin is pretty much non-existent in tinctures. We are also studying the agricultural parameters that are important for promoting optimal melanin content of echinacea plants and activity as well as determining the structural features of melanin that are important for its ability to acnvate monocytes/ macrophages.
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