Jing Liang, started experimenting with herbs from her native China, beginning with the ones that traditional medicine claimed had an effect on alcohol. Liang has been sitting with us in the conference room, silent. Now she pipes up: “Hovenia. It’s been used in Asia for 500 years,” she says. “I found it in a grocery store.” “A grocery store?” Olsen says, impressed at her ingenuity. “Good for you.” The lab purified the plant until they had an ingredient that acted on the right receptor. It turned out to be a flavonoid, a common molecular family. It already had a name—ampelopsin—but they started
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