I'd like to know the answer to this as well. I'm about to get my B.S. in Chemistry, and I've been dreaming of studying psychedelics for the better part of a decade now (particularly the phenethylamines as outside of Sasha Shulgin's work and research on MDMA, PEAs have been thoroughly understudied). More specifically, I'm interested in investigating mechanisms of psychedelic-neuroreceptor interactions and looking for qualitative (or quantitative, if the studies became rigorous enough from a physical organic chem. perspective)-structure-activity relationships (QSARs) between receptors and their psychedelic ligands. Maybe those sorts of studies are many years away yet, but is there anyone at the Heffter Institute that is pursuing that sort of research? If not, then would anyone at the Institute happen to know of a group that is doing those types of studies or is interested in pursuing them?
And now a much broader question: what's the Heffter Institute's ideal long term research plan? Is the research focus going to remain with the classical indole psychedelics for the foreseeable future? Or are there plans to diversify the research portfolio to more exotic and less well known compounds over the next 5-10 years? Obviously the federal legal obstacles make genuine long term planning incredibly challenging, and there may be so much more for us to learn about psilocybin that the Institute won't have the time or resources to devote to any/many other psychedelics, but I'd love to know where current psychedelic researchers want to see the field go over the next decade or two (especially to see how those visions line up with my own!).
awdswimmer3 karma
I'd like to know the answer to this as well. I'm about to get my B.S. in Chemistry, and I've been dreaming of studying psychedelics for the better part of a decade now (particularly the phenethylamines as outside of Sasha Shulgin's work and research on MDMA, PEAs have been thoroughly understudied). More specifically, I'm interested in investigating mechanisms of psychedelic-neuroreceptor interactions and looking for qualitative (or quantitative, if the studies became rigorous enough from a physical organic chem. perspective)-structure-activity relationships (QSARs) between receptors and their psychedelic ligands. Maybe those sorts of studies are many years away yet, but is there anyone at the Heffter Institute that is pursuing that sort of research? If not, then would anyone at the Institute happen to know of a group that is doing those types of studies or is interested in pursuing them?
And now a much broader question: what's the Heffter Institute's ideal long term research plan? Is the research focus going to remain with the classical indole psychedelics for the foreseeable future? Or are there plans to diversify the research portfolio to more exotic and less well known compounds over the next 5-10 years? Obviously the federal legal obstacles make genuine long term planning incredibly challenging, and there may be so much more for us to learn about psilocybin that the Institute won't have the time or resources to devote to any/many other psychedelics, but I'd love to know where current psychedelic researchers want to see the field go over the next decade or two (especially to see how those visions line up with my own!).
View HistoryShare Link