UC Davis establishes Institute for Psychedelics and Neurotherapeutics

The University of California, Davis announced this week that it is launching a new institute that aims to “expand the basic knowledge of the mechanisms of psychedelics and translate it into safe and effective treatments for conditions such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, among others.”

The Institute for Psychedelics and Neurotherapeutics, dubbed the Institute for Psychedelics and Neurotherapeutics, will “bring together scientists from different disciplines and collaborate with the pharmaceutical industry to ensure that important discoveries lead to new medicines for patients,” the university said in the announcement adding that the institute “was specifically designed to facilitate collaboration across campus.”

The institute “is funded in part by an approximately $5 million contribution from the Deans of the College of Letters and Science and School of Medicine, the Vice Chancellor for Research, and the Office of the Provost,” the school said that made it through the Funding differs from other centers in the same field of study.

“While other psychedelic science centers across the country have been established with donations from philanthropists, the UC Davis Institute is distinguished by the fact that it is also supported by significant university funds,” the university said.

The university said that another “unique feature of the UC Davis institute will be its focus on chemistry and the development of novel neurotherapeutics.”

David E. Olson, associate professor in the Departments of Chemistry and in the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine at UC Davis, was selected as the founding director of the new institute.

“Psychedelics have a lot of therapeutic potential, but we can do better,” said Olson, whose group published a paper three years ago “described the first non-hallucinogenic analogue of a psychedelic compound capable of altering neuroplasticity.” to promote and elicit antidepressant and antiaddictive effects in preclinical models,” according to the university.

According to Olson, the university said, “Novel molecules tailored to specific disease indications could offer significant benefits and open doors to partnerships with industry by solving many problems that traditional psychedelics currently face in terms of safety, scalability, and.” intellectual property.”

“Psychedelics have the unique ability to induce long-lasting changes in the brain that are relevant to the treatment of numerous disorders,” Olson said. “If we can take advantage of these beneficial properties while designing safer and more scalable molecules, we can help a lot of people.”

John A. Gray, Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology, will serve as Associate Director. Olson and Gray authored a 2018 study “showing that psychedelics promote neuroplasticity — the growth of new neurons and the formation of neural connections,” the university said in this week’s announcement.

“Neural atrophy is a key factor underlying many diseases, and psychedelics’ ability to promote the growth of neurons and new connections in the brain could have far-reaching therapeutic implications,” Gray said.

The university stated that the institute will leverage “the extraordinary breadth of expertise in the UC Davis neuroscience community, which includes nearly 300 faculty members in centers, institutes and departments on the Davis and Sacramento campuses,” and that the researchers “in will be able to work on all aspects of psychedelic science, from molecules and cells to human clinical trials.”

“The combination of the significant expertise of UC Davis’ pioneering basic research teams, world-class neuroscientists, and our nationally recognized medical center is a winning formula that we are confident will lead to breakthrough discoveries that will benefit patients regionally and globally,” Susan Murin , Dean of the School of Medicine, said in the announcement this week.