I must confess I spent most of the evening of #VeteransDay (November 11) watching #warmovies and listening to #marchingsongs. All these brought back memories of #WWII, and tears. I should say “selective” memories, as when we left #Hong Kong to go to my mother’s village (~100 miles NW of HK) to escape the war, I was 4 years old, yet the only things I remember about HK was – the air-raid shelter was very crowded and our house had an accordion metal sliding gate at its front door. I must have seen #bodies without heads #floating in the #harbor, because the #Japanese #soldiers were #beheading #Chinese #civilians along the water front after they took HK. I must have blocked off that memory in subconscious self-defense.
After spending 4 years of #carefree childhood in my mother’s village away from the #ravages of the war itself (except one famine), we saw Japanese soldiers being marched through town, and knew the war was over. That later somehow evoked my memory of the #FlyingTigers of #ClaireChennault and Uncle Doon Ng (Wu) from my mothers’ village who was a colonel in the Chinese air force at the time, both fighting the Japanese out of #Chongqing (Chungking), China’s wartime capital. My fond memories of #Americanarmedforces came later via their marching songs and WW II movies. For some reason, I have always felt connected with #Americanveterans, and I intend to do something for them with my PBN mycelia.
I am lucky to be born into a family with scholastic traits on my father’s side and TCM traits on my mother’s side. Over a few generations, my father’s family had gone through hard times but continued to survive until WW II, then we lost everything to bombs.
I grew up with my mother’s family, in HK and in her village during the war. My childhood in the village was safe and well protected by my family members. School was never my thing, especially the boring compulsory subjects. Hence, I #flunkedout of elementary school, and then high school. But I picked up #Spanish, #French and #German during my freshman and sophomore years and somehow managed to skip my junior year and graduated with honors from another high school. We were poor at the time, but Uncle Siu and Aunt Pauline supported my college education in #Taiwan where I graduated with a B.S. in #Pharmacy. Then, after returning to Hong Kong and taught chemistry for a year, I came to the #UniversityofMichigan in Ann Arbor in 1962 on a #teachingassistantship in #Pharmacognosy.
My PhD research was growing #Psilocybe #baeocystis #mycelium in #liquidculture, inducing it to produce #psilocybin (P), #psilocin, and other close analogs (sister compounds), two of which I isolated, determined their chemical structures, and named them #baeocystin (B) and #norbaeocystin (N). Then, I had a long and diversified, #independent #career (#phytochemist, #microbiologist, #naturalproductchemist, #Chinese herbalist, #herbal scientist, & #entrepreneur) for 55 years until I rejoined the #psychedelics space and discovered a potential #newindustry based on #naturals, #BYPASSING the #synthetics, using my PBN mycelia as the vehicle to start this new industry. The unique thing about this PBN mycelium is that it can be grown in known nutrients, forming pellets in the fermenter (aka bioreactor). You simply harvest them, rinse them with distilled water, and freeze-dried them. That’s your product! No toxic contaminants from the soil or the synthetic process.
During my long career, I responded to government #requestsforproposals (#RFP) only twice, and both times I won the contract/grant. So, I know my fellow scientists like my innovations; my projects and successes were real, not just luck, or cronyism.
Two issues have prompted me to consider this new industry of #natural #psychedelics (#PBN):
- We know all synthetic drugs are toxic, due to the drugs themselves or the #impurities present. NO studies have disproved this.
- Despite the closeness of B and N (#4-hydroxytryptamine, after losing its phosphate group in our body) to the #neurotransmitter, #serotonin (S, aka #5-hydroxytryptamine), no one has produced either chemical naturally for further studies. Thus, #4hydoxytryptamine and #5hydroxytryptamine are basically non-identical #twins! Can B and N rejuvenize our brain cells? Regardless, they have no toxic petrochemicals lurking in them to cause us harm as in #syntheticdrugs.
It’s time to break up synthetic drug-therapy’s #vicious #cycle or bypass it. Without the v.c., much human #pain and #suffering can be avoided, along with much less money going to the #exploiters of #humanhealth. Hence, when I have the chance, I’ll use my PBN mycelium to bypass the toxic synthetic psilocybin, to help our veterans who fought for our country and came home wounded with #PostTraumaticStressDisorder (#PTSD).
This medicine, mycelial supplement, or whatever you call it, is sure NOT to have the toxic properties inherent in synthetic drugs which beget #newdiseases that require more drugs to treat, hence the v.c. But it is a #PerpetualFountainofGold for #BigPharma & Co.
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