The Background of Dr. Jerry McLaughlin

Quick Facts:

Jerry McLaughlin, Ph.D., received his Degree in Pharmacognosy from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. For the next 34 years, he served as a Professor of Pharmacognosy at the University of Michigan, the University of Washington at Seattle, and Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana. In 1999, Dr. McLaughlin became the Vice President of Research, Development, and Quality Assurance at Nature's Sunshine Products in Provo, Utah. He also served as the Chief Scientific Officer of Nature’s Sunshine Products, and retired in 2004. He resides today in Florida, although he enjoys fishing in Alaska during the summer months.

Dr. McLaughlin has made well over 300 scientific presentations in several different countries, and his work is chronicled in over 330 publications, supported by nearly 80 different grants and contracts.

He is best known for his research with natural medicinal products. He describes his type or work as “grind and find” research in which he grinds up a plant and tries to find its bioactive components. The methods of his brine shrimp lethality bioassay, first published in 1982, have now been cited over 1,000 times in the scientific literature.

Without question, Dr. McLaughlin’s most important work lies in his contributions to our knowledge concerning the Annonaceous acetogenins found in the pawpaw tree. Following his observations in 1982 that the North American paw paw tree was potently bioactive, his group identified some 50 acetogenins in its seeds and bark with antitumor and pesticidal properties. The acetogenins not only selectively inhibit cancer cells, but they also thwart multiple drug resistant tumor cells. He published several scientific papers on that effect.

Pawpaw is now in capsule form as a supplement, and reports are that many cancer patients who have been taking or have taken the product have experienced lowered tumor antigen count, shrinkage of tumors and more energy.