Talking Novel Tryptamines With Dr Chadeayne

A few months ago I wrote a feature for VICE on a little-known condition called ‘wood lovers paralysis’, a strange temporary paralysis thought to be caused by the consumption of certain species of ‘wood-loving’ psychedelic mushrooms.

One of the prime suspects in this mystery is the chemical aeruginascin, a psilocybin analogue of unknown effect. CaaMTech are a Canadian pharmaceutical research company who specialise in elucidating the chemical functions of many of the worlds naturally occurring psychedelics and have conducted some of the only work on aeruginascin.

In collaboration with the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and Canopy Growth USA, their recent work details new information on novel auruginascin-derived tryptamines that may significantly improve our understanding of psychedelic science and consciousness.

I caught up with CaaMTech CEO Dr Andrew Chadeayne via email to talk about the publication of his new work and what this means for the future of psychedelic medicine.

Hi Andrew — tell us a bit about yourself and why you’re doing what you're doing.

I’m Andrew Chadeayne, father of two young kids, and I’m just trying to be a good person and make the world better for my kids. I want to be someone my kids will someday be proud to call their Dad.

Here, I think my best opportunity for contributing to the world will come at the intersection of neuroscience, chemistry, natural psychoactives, and patent law because that’s the intersection of my life’s expertise/experience.

I hope the work we’re doing with psychedelics will make the whole movement safer and more successful. I don’t know how the big picture will unfold, and I don’t have any political agenda either way, but I am 100% committed to the idea that everyone would be better off if we knew what drugs people were consuming and/or trying to understand.

Admittedly, that’s not entirely my idea: My wife is an ER doctor and she sees lots of patients who are freaking out because of some street drugs they’ve taken but it’s often hard for her to help them because it’s so hard to figure out what they’ve really consumed.

One good thing that has come out of changes to the cannabis law has been that many of her patients can now show her a package/label that clearly defines the composition of the drugs they took. (Compare an unlabeled plastic baggie of “drugs.”)

It may sound really simple, but knowing the chemical composition makes it easier to help people. And knowing the chemical composition also makes it easier to design products that don’t have as many side-effects, e.g., wood lovers paralysis, dysphoria, anxiety, body load, etc..

Improving our chemical understanding is the foundation for these improvements. And, I really enjoy chemistry and science. That passion for science (especially chemistry/molecules) is really the driving force behind CaaMTech.

There is a tremendous amount of work to be done to elevate psychedelics from a position of outright illegality to a widespread, useful tool in modern society. One of the most basic beliefs we hold at CaaMTech is that consumers of drugs should know exactly what it is they’re taking and how much.

This is a low bar that hasn’t been cleared by the majority of psychedelic drug use. For example, when consuming psychedelic mushrooms, consumers focus almost entirely on psilocybin (and make a crude guess at its dose) when there are several other psychoactive ingredients they consume simultaneously.

CaaMTech’s work has largely focused on understanding the fundamental chemistry of psychedelic drugs. This work not only helps to fill in the blanks for existing drugs already being consumed around the world but educates our team and other researchers about opportunities to develop improved drugs with optimized properties, including safety and efficacy for specific conditions.

What does this new research show and what does it mean for psychedelic research and broader public interest?

The publication of our synthesis of Amphoria™ (4-OH-TMT) and Prophoria™ (4-AcO-TMT) is an excellent example of what I’ve described in my answer to your first question. When mushrooms containing aeruginascin are consumed, the body metabolizes the aeruginascin into Amphoria™ which is then active in the body. Almost nothing is known about aeruginascin, nevermind Amphoria™. Synthesizing Amphoria™ allows scientists to conduct the fundamental research on this drug and how it works.

We think that’s important because the compound is already part of some natural psychedelic experiences. For example, Amphoria™ (4-OH-TMT) has been hypothesized to cause important effects, including paralysis to euphoria.

Prophoria™ takes this research one step further, giving us a drug to administer that behaves like aeruginascin in vivo, meaning it is metabolized into Amphoria™. Unlike aeruginascin, Prophoria™ can be easily and inexpensively produced via laboratory synthesis.

We’re really doing a lot of this work because it’s a fun puzzle. At CaaMTech, we all adhere to a policy that our best work comes from doing what we love. So, we try to focus on those things. We love making and studying new molecules and we enjoy thinking about the chemical underpinnings for human consciousness. Those are the two things that got me into science over 20 years ago; those are the things that have brought together the CaaMTech team and our collaborators.

Today, psychedelic medicine seems like a space where the interaction of these two passions could translate into real-world benefits, i.e. providing a better understanding of the molecules that are starting to receive widespread attention.

On a personal note, I also really like supporting academic science because my training was in academic labs that were always struggling for funding. When I “sold out” after getting my PhD at Cornell by going into corporate patent law (instead of becoming a professor like my labmates), I always sort of figured that I would find a way to contribute to academic science down the road — in my own way.

I think my PhD advisor, Pete Wolczanski, would now tell you that he’s happy with how I turned out as a scientist even though I took a very different path from his other students.

Barb Bauer at The Psychedelic Review has done some great work - as always - breaking down the significance of the paper. Head to her site to check out more.