Time’s a-wasting with #Natural #PBN (#psilocybin #baeocystin #norbaeocystin) #mycelial #products! Part 1 of 5. (Uploaded on LinkedIn on 3/29/2023 ~ 10:56 pm)
I am talking about doing what should have been done in early 2022 – to produce clean natural PBN mycelium at least in experimental quantities.
Instead, some companies wasted their initial #funding, without anything to show except #fancy #ads to promote their #fantasy #product(s) that didn’t exist.
After obtaining my PhD in 1967, I left the psilocybin space to pursue a successful #entrepreneurial / #consulting career in #natural #products (#food, #drugs, #cosmetics and finally, #herbs), ending up owning a plant to formulate and produce #herbal #supplements for other companies.
My first book, #Encyclopedia of #Common #Natural #Ingredients Used in #Food, #Drugs, and #Cosmetics was published by Wiley in 1980. It soon became one of Wiley’s best sellers and revised in 1996 (2nd Ed.), and again in 2010 (3rd Ed.). Despite being well known in different industries for several decades, because of my ADHD, easily distracted, and sometimes mentally slow, nature, I am usually quiet, and was never the #self-#promoting type, until after I self-published my second major book, #My #Life & #Rollercoaster #Career (CreateSpace, 2018). When my Encyclopedia was published in 1980, Wiley did all the marketing. But with my newest book, I realized I had to promote it myself. As I never liked the other social networks (e.g., Face Book & Twitter), I picked the more professional one, #LinkedIn. So, I reactivated my account and started to post on it in late 2019. Within weeks, I noticed the #chatter in #psilocybin, so I rejoined the PBN space, promptly forgetting to promote my new book.
Quickly, I noticed #greed was the #prime #incentive leading my psychedelic colleagues and friends towards the same path taken by #herbal #supplements. In less than 3 decades after the passage of #DSHEA) in 1994, #misinformation, #disinformation, scientific #ignorance or #oversight, led by #greed, have made massive #confusion of our herbs with drugs, naturals with synthetics, resulting in our current plight. Many herbal supplements have no herbs in them; and 2 herbal products with the same labeled herbs can be different as night and day.
See my post on “#HPTLC #fingerprints of #herbal #products” uploaded on LinkedIn 2-3 weeks ago, where my #herbal #drinks (PC & ITo) were compared to #imitation / #adulterated ones (ITn & AV) supplied by my clients’ new suppliers. It’s pitiful this could happen: even though 5X more sample of the imitation drink, ITn (lane 3), was used, it shows less than 1/10as strong as our original drink, ITo (lane 2), or basically > 50X WEAKER!
I don’t want these to happen to our PBN products. So, I’m going to continue to speak out, trying to #educate the public and my colleagues on these confusing issues, highlighting the benefits of natural PBN over synthetic psychedelics.
Time’s a-wasting with #Natural #PBN #mycelial #products! Part 2 of 5. (3/30/2023 ~11:00 pm)
Synthetic chemicals made from toxic petroleum are inherently toxic – either the drugs themselves, or some highly toxic chemical(s) in their usually 2% impurities.
They have created the #vicious #cycle that has been causing us much pain and suffering (physical, mental & financial) for over 3 generations. We are now hopelessly entangled in the following areas:
- #Confusing #herbs vs. #drugs, naturals vs. synthetics;
- #Toxic #chemicals in the drugs’ usually 2% #impurities are seldom tested; hence we don’t know the #effects and #toxicities are due to the drugs themselves or to some highly toxic chemical(s) in their impurities.
Unless these issues are resolved, our now-established #drug-#therapy with #synthetics will never yield reproducible or useful results.
Being a successful entrepreneurial scientist for decades, I can provide #guidance to the #bright #younger #scientists to stay on course. Here are a few projects to show my innovative thinking to assure you of the success of our current and future endeavors:
- During my 6-decade long career, I have only responded to two requests for proposals / applications (#RFP / #RFA) from the National Institutes of Health (#NIH) and both times I won.
The first was in the mid- to late-1980s from the #National #Cancer #Institute to build a #database on #anticancer #natural #products. My one-person company, teamed up with a young database company, #Ketron, won one of the two 1st phase awards ($50,000). The other winner was closely connected with #NAPRALERT (the world-famous database of natural products). That was a Small Business Innovation Research (#SBIR) program with, I believe, 13 companies having submitted bids.
We finished our contract with me as #Principal #Investigator (PI), and my company, #AYSL #Corporation, as the prime contractor. Both companies were invited to submit a 2nd-Phase proposal. We did, and #our #proposal #won again. But NCI allegedly had no money to fund it. It is described in “Chapter 8: David vs. Goliath…” of My Life & Rollercoaster Career (pp.121-125). I was so turned off by #government #cronyism that for 15 years, I didn’t want to deal with any government contracts or grants.
Then around 2000, persuaded by a friend and colleague, we responded to 1 of 4 requests for application (#RFA) issued by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (#NCCAM) to study some major herbs (echinacea, milk thistle, #feverfew & valerian). Again, with me as the PI and my other company, #Phyto-#Technologies (manufacturing & lab) as the applicant, we won the combined Phases I & II grant to investigate feverfew, and successfully finished it in 5 years, costing NIH $1.4 million. A major byproduct of that research is our #Representative #Botanical #Reference #Materials (#RBRM) (part of our #Phyto-#True #System) that received a #patent from the #European #Patent #Office
Time’s a-wasting with #Natural #PBN #mycelial #products! Part 3 of 5. (3/31/2023 ~9:35 pm)
2. Another couple of accomplishments of which I am proud were made during the five years I worked for two companies. The first one was around 1969-1971 when there was a petroleum glut. My first job after my postdoc years was with a small research company in San Francisco as a #microbiologist doing research on petroleum – #growing #bacteria on #petroleum and harvesting them as #single-#cell #protein. I had total charge of the microbial research and in less than 18 months, mostly funded by #Gulf & #Western, we developed a process ready for pilot plant. This is described in “Chapter 5: My first big business intrigue…” of #My #Life & #Rollercoaster #Career, pp.99-104.
3. Then, during the mid-1970s I was working as Director of R&D for Dr. Madis Laboratories, a botanical extraction company. I developed a simple process of extracting #natural #levodopa from #velvet #beans, which has been used in treating #Parkinson’s #disease (PD) with fewer toxic side effects than synthetic levodopa, according to #Dr. #George #Cotzias, a pioneer in using levodopa for PD. While there were a few patents describing the separation of levodopa from basically a #bean #soup with complicated steps, my process involved the key step of only cracking the beans (no powdering) and wetting the chunks with dilute acetic acid to fix the #protein and trapping the other large molecules in the beans. Then, when we extracted the beans with warm water, filtered and concentrated the extract, crystals were formed and the levodopa was already over 90% purity. It is just that simple! [My Life & Rollercoaster Career, pp.94-96.]
The above examples are just to show my innovative thinking and my #research #management skills that can be applied successfully to our process for growing mycelia containing PBN, as its technical details have already been published in 5 papers during 1965 to 1969. Yet so far, this has not been produced NATURALLY by anyone, in sufficient quantities for testing, even with $millions in funding already spent.
Regardless, sometimes innovative thinking and specialization in your own field is not enough. You have to have another set of knowledge not taught in scientific disciplines. In my case, I grew up with Chinese medicines, because my maternal great grandfather was the village doctor. My grandma must have learned the art from him, her father-in-law, because she married into the Ng (Wu) family young, in her mid-teens. So, Grandma was basically our family physician when we were growing up. And I know the basics of herbs.
Time’s a-wasting with #Natural #PBN #mycelial #products! Part 4 of 5. (4/1/2023 ~9:09am)
4. So, when Avon, one of my numerous #cosmetic #clients, had problem with its best-selling facial cream containing #retinoids, causing #rashes, I knew where to look for solutions, because I could interpret the esoteric Chinese language used in describing herb actions – cooling, heating, removing evil wind, etc. At the time, Avon was interviewing the top expert in the cosmetic field, and another in the natural products field (the #dermatologist, #Dr. #Kligman & the #pharmacognosist, #Dr. #Norman #Farnsworth, respectively). I think my reputation was known mostly to fellow scientists I had worked with, as I had no wealth and ‘empire’ or fame attached to my name. I think one of my colleagues must have told #Avon to also take a look at me. So, I was one of the three experts interviewed by Avon. I told them I could make them five #extracts from #Chinese #herbs and one of them should work. Then, only weeks after Avon gave me a 3-year consulting contract, I provided them with the extracts. They tested them quickly and found one extract that met their needs. Since I was not an approved vender, and Avon wanted the extracts ASAP, we had to arrange to have them delivered to an Avon-approved vendor near me. So, everyone involved was happy. I don’t remember what we did with the remaining two-and-a-half years of my contract.
Now, on reminiscing about my encounters with Dr. Farnsworth over my long career, he never talked down to me as a couple of his #self-#aggrandizing #underlings in his ‘empire’ had. Could it be due to the fact that his group’s being the top dog in the #database game, and they didn’t know my capabilities, except Norm? But after I had beaten them in the contract with NCI in their own database game (#NAPRALERT), and also with Avon in the #natural #products field (one of my specialties), I didn’t get any more disrespect from them since. Incidentally, in one of the Society of Pharmacognosy annual meetings during the mid-1970s, I happened to be playing poker with Norm, #Dr. #Gordon #Svoboda (the one who introduced the #vinca #alkaloids for leukemia treatment while at Lilly) and another scientist I can’t remember; I cleaned them out, and earned the nickname of ‘cardsharp’ from them. Yet I was a novice in poker, because unlike most Chinese, I don’t gamble! This may be another example of my #luck throughout my life, which often decides success or failure in our life undertakings, not just in gambling, as here.
Time’s a-wasting with #Natural #PBN #mycelial #products! Part 5 of 5. (4/1/2023 ~ 5:45 pm)
Now that I have abandoned our original plans of seeking funding and doing the whole process ourselves, there is no longer any need to spend time and efforts to build another company from scratch (securing $2 million, hiring staff, setting up lab and production facilities & all). Instead, after wasting almost 3 years in failed ventures with others, I have finally decided to form a #worldwide #organization to #connect #likeminded people (#colleagues, #peers & #friends) who have interest in #natural #psychedelics (#NOT #SYNTHETIC) for whatever reason, including those who use and/or dispense them, #professionals, #laymen, #producers with full or minimal #facilities, #analytical #labs, and #research #institutes, among others. My goals basically come down to two –
i. Provide natural PBN mycelial products, with defined amounts of PBN as HPTLC #fingerprints, to those who need them the most, at #affordable prices, #BYPASSING the #toxic #synthetics.
ii. Continue to try to make others (technical and lay) aware of the damages done by the #vicious #cycle of toxic synthetic drugs caused by our continued #mixing-up of naturals and synthetics, herbs and drugs, as explained earlier.
I’ll announce soon to start inviting potential members to join our #PBN #Pearls group, as soon as I have the #basics and #logistics worked out, hopefully in another week.
Please bear with me in the meantime. I am a very slow worker, especially I am supposed to be retired, hence I no longer have competent assistants in different locations. This is going to be a long process, maybe a year or two. But I have to get the organization #started #first for disseminating information regarding the misinformation and confusion of drugs and herbs, natural and synthetic, that have caused the vicious cycle in drug therapy which, in turn, has led us to the current mess – a #fountain of #gold for #drug #makers and their associates (#promoters, #insurers, #crooked #politicians, etc.) but #pain and #suffering for the vast majority of #Americans with #financial #ruin for a sizable number. Then, when #psychedelics become #legal, we can promptly produce natural PBN mycelial products with defined amounts of PBN fingerprinted by #HPTLC, so that we’ll no longer have to guess on their dosages.