Psylo Newsletter - January 2022

psylo_newsletters

27 Jan

Welcome

Happy New Year from Psylo! We are an Australian biotech company developing psychedelic-inspired medicine.

There is a lot of media focused on the psychedelic space right now, and we thought it would be helpful to curate the scientific developments that excite the team at Psylo. Welcome to our monthly newsletter. Enjoy!

Psylo Updates

Our research programme has already produced three new families of novel psychedelic-inspired chemotypes, and we wrapped up 2021 by filing provisional patent applications for those families. We're building the team and gearing up for a huge 2022! This year will see us launch numerous partnerships across academia and government to grow our world-leading psychedelic drug discovery pipeline. Big things ahead!

General Updates

Government supports psychedelic research | Australian researchers have received $14.8M from the government to support seven clinical trials that will test psychedelics and other psychoactive substances for the treatment of mental illnesses [source].

The trials include:

Psilocybin for anorexia nervosa, depression, and alcohol use.
MDMA for social anxiety in young adults with autism spectrum disorder, alcoholism, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
CBD for anxiety disorders in youth.
DMT for major depression and alcohol use.

Psilocybin for anorexia nervosa | Psylo’s CSO, Dr. Sam Banister, is part of an international team of researchers who received government funding ($1.2M) to trial psilocybin for the eating disorder anorexia nervosa [source].

Happy birthday to the godfather of Western psychedelics | January 11th was Albert Hofmann’s birthday. Albert Hofmann discovered LSD and introduced psychedelics to the modern Western world. Here’s a video of Psylo’s CSO, Dr. Sam Banister, recounting how Albert Hofmann accidentally had the world’s first LSD trip in 1943.

RESEARCH UPDATES

Recap of Psychedelic Research from 2021

Highlights from a landmark year in psychedelic science | Psychedelic Research and Clinical Trials in 2021 [via Psilocybin alpha].

Psychedelic Clinical Research

MDMA/ecstasy & psilocybin use is associated with a lower risk of depression | Findings from a Harvard University observational study of 213,437 US adults [study].
Psilocybin is generally well-tolerated in healthy adults | At a single dose of 10 mg or 25 mg (moderate and high/therapeutic dose), psilocybin had no short- or long-term detrimental effects on cognitive functioning or emotional processing in a controlled study of 60 healthy adults (followed up for 12 weeks) [study].
Laying the groundwork to pair psychedelics with Virtual Reality (VR) for the treatment of psychiatric disease | A systematic literature review of research deemed psychedelics and VR to be relatively safe and promising in the treatment of different mental illnesses. No studies of the VR + psychedelics combination exist yet and authors highlight the promise of combining these tools and encourage research in this area [study].

Psychedelic Preclinical Research

Models of psychedelic drug action | Dr. Fredrick Barrett and co. (Johns Hopkins) explores 5-HT2A activation on neural systems to explain many phenomena of the psychedelic experience [study].
New molecular tool for studying 5-HT2A | Photoswitchable Serotonins were developed for optical control of the 5-HT2A receptor. These are cutting-edge molecular tools that can activate 5-HT2A receptors using light to allow more precision and control for the investigation of serotonin signalling [study].
5-HT2A receptors mediate neuronal regeneration; promising for stroke recovery | Fluoxetine, a classical antidepressant that increases serotonin, caused stem cells that were implanted into rat brains to differentiate into neurons. Differentiation occurred through activation of 5-HT2A and 5-HT3A in a rat model of stroke [study].

Science in sixty seconds

What is 5-HT2A and why is it important?

The 5-HT2A serotonin receptor, located on specific brain cells called neurons, is largely responsible for the psychedelic effects associated with compounds like psilocybin (from psilocybe mushrooms) and LSD. 5-HT2A also mediates brain plasticity and is a key target being explored in the development of new antidepressants.

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