I spent 3 years at graduate school analyzing tryptamines/indoles related to psilocybin and psilocin using HPTLC, followed by growing psychedelic mushrooms in liquid culture. I isolated 2 psilocybin analogs from Psilocybe baeocystis and named them baeocystin and norbaeocystin. They are the closest sister compounds simultaneously to psilocybin and serotonin. I am not sure if I used other analytical techniques would have led me to discover such close analogs. When dephosphorylated, norbaeocystin becomes 4-hydroxytryptamine; it is a non-identical twin of serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine). The latter is an important hormone and neurotransmitter responsible for various important brain and body functions. Yet 60 years after I published the papers on them, no scientists have repeated my work. No one knows what serotonin’s twin, 4-hydroxytryptamine, can do. I have written about this issue over the past decades. Yet most scientists (or most likely the ‘businessmen faux scientists in charge’ of their outfits) are too blinded by greed or ignorance to notice anything unusual when they work on these psychedelic tryptamines. And for 60 years!? Why are we wasting our research money on token research or research using the wrong science or wrong approach that I call faux science?
Talking about faux science used in especially psychedelics research, I am bringing up the vicious cycle (VC) again. I have a feeling the current goldrush companies are run by businessmen who think they are also technical, thus wasting our money in suppressing real talents in chasing the wrong things. I know because over my long career, I have repeatedly bumped into people like that, mostly in the psychedelics field. The most recent one was only a few years ago. He was probably the third or fourth such fake business/faux scientists that I have run into. Like the other fakes, he probably thought I was clueless after meeting me for the first time (without knowing a thing about me) and then persuaded his smart computer-savvy partner to do without me as their partner. I still feel sorry for the latter – my potential young computer partner. His business partner didn’t know my technical history, and probably only noticed my inattention/ADHD. Please read on:
In all my over 50 years of diversified career, I only applied for one government contract and one government grant. The contract was with NCI around the mid-1980s and the grant was from NCCAM at the beginning of 2000. I won both, 5 years apart. They were 5 years apart because after we (my one-man company & a new computer startup named Ketron as my subcontractor) won the contract, but we didn’t get funded because it was government cronyism – the contract RFP was written for my competitor, the world-famous NAPRALERT database group! I was so disgusted that I swore not to deal with the cronyism in government again. Then a friend and colleague persuaded me to go for the NCCAM grant around 2000. By then, I already had a competent staff, manufacturing facility, and lab. Both projects are described in my book, My Life & Rollercoaster Career: “Chapter 8. David vs. Goliath: NCI SBIR Phase II Database Contract, What if…?” and “Chapter 12. What is Wrong with Drugs and Herbal Supplements?”
Now, I am a one-man company again after I came back from retirement to rejoin the psychedelic movement 5 or 6 years ago, because I can see it is heading the same direction towards the vicious cycle (VC) of synthetic drug therapy and herbal supplements. This VC, per my definition, is going to perpetually ruin our environment and most Americans’ continuing poor health. It only financially benefits Big Pharma and its interdependent associates like insurance companies, promotors, advertisers, and crooked politicians, but at the expense of most Americans. My plan is to initially start with our totally natural psychedelic mycelia, to bypass or remove the toxic elements of their synthetic counterparts! This should be our first effort. One small step at a time.