COSAM News Articles 2023 February Hear from the co-founder and chief scientific officer of a biotechnology company at this year’s Phi Lambda Upsilon Lectureship on Thursday, Feb. 16

Hear from the co-founder and chief scientific officer of a biotechnology company at this year’s Phi Lambda Upsilon Lectureship on Thursday, Feb. 16

Published: 02/14/2023

By: Maria Gebhardt

Don’t miss this year’s annual Phi Lambda Upsilon Lectureship featuring Jackie von Salm, co-founder and chief scientific officer of Psilera, a biotechnology company.

The lecture, How Nature’s Chemistry Continues to Inspire 21st Century Medicine, explores the topic of psychoactive natural products and how they can become more accessible to treat diverse patients with less risk. 

Phi Lambda Upsilon is an honorary honor society includes 67 chapters and more than 55,000 members. Auburn University’s chapter was established in 1933.

 In 2019, von Salm co-founded this company to focus on early-stage drug discovery and development for new neurological therapeutics.

She earned her doctorate degree from the University of South Florida in 2016.

Her list of impressive accomplishments include:

  • Featured in National Geographic, Nature and the Wall Street Journal
  • Most Read Author by the American Chemical Society (ACS) in 2017
  • MAPS/Cosmic Sister Emerging Voices Award in 2019
  • ACS ElSohly Award for Excellence in Cannabis Chemistry in 2020

 

For further information contact Abby Hung or Dr. Schneller.


Read the abstract for her talk:

Compounds found in nature, often referred to as natural products, have served as blueprints for drug discovery and medicine throughout human history with more than 65% of FDA-approved medications owing their origin to a chemical found in nature. A heightened societal interest in psychoactive natural products such as cannabinoids, tryptamines, and phenethylamines has catalyzed studying these compounds after years of dormant research. This newly found interest is due in part to the increasing awareness of mental health as well as the excessive substance abuse associated with opioid pharmaceuticals. Of the known psychedelics, tryptamines such as psilocybin (mostly found in Psilocybe mushroom species) and N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT; typically found in mimosa tree bark, Mimosa spp., or ayahuasca tea, Banisteriopsis caapi) are shown to have promising activity in mental health and other central nervous system disorders with multiple phase I and phase II clinical trials ongoing for various depressive disorders (TRD and MDD) around the world. Although promising, these compounds have major limitations including extreme hallucinations and minor cardiotoxicity, so how can we use our now decades of drug discovery and pharmaceutical knowledge to mitigate those risks and make these medications more accessible to diverse patient populations?

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