{"id":73,"date":"2019-03-25T06:36:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-25T13:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/?p=73"},"modified":"2019-12-29T18:46:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-30T02:46:00","slug":"caamtech-solves-crystal-structure-of-psilacetin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/caamtech-solves-crystal-structure-of-psilacetin\/","title":{"rendered":"CaaMTech Solves Crystal Structure of Psilacetin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>ISSAQUAH, WA<strong> &#8211; <\/strong>For the first time in history, <a href=\"https:\/\/psychedelicreview.com\/the-crystal-structure-of-4-aco-dmt-fumarate\/\">researchers at CaaMTech, LLC have solved the crystal\nstructure of psilacetin (4-AcO-DMT) fumarate<\/a>, a prodrug of psilocin. Psilocin has recently\nreceived renewed interest as a treatment for a wide variety of psychological\ndisorders, including depression, anxiety, addiction and post-traumatic stress\ndisorder.&nbsp; To this point, psilocin has\nprimarily been clinically administered in the form of synthetic psilocybin, a\nnaturally occurring psychoactive molecule found in \u201cmagic mushrooms.\u201d When\nadministered, both psilacetin and psilocybin are readily metabolized into\npsilocin, which is responsible for the resulting therapeutic benefits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cPsilacetin is much more easily prepared than\npsilocybin,\u201d potentially providing, \u201can economical alternative for clinicians\nwishing to study the psychopharmacology of psilocin,\u201d according to Dr. David E.\nNichols, the medicinal chemist and current Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology\nat Purdue University who first synthesized psilacetin. Though it is readily\ncrystallized as the fumarate salt, scientific study of psilacetin has been limited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis is the first time that the scientific\ncommunity has been able to look directly at this molecule,\u201d said Dr. Andrew\nChadeayne, president of CaaMTech. \u201cThis is really the first scientific proof\nthat psilacetin exists. While previous work provided clues about psilacetin,\nnow we know the structure definitively.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fundamental physical characterization is\nrequired to understand and develop any molecule. For psilacetin, this\ninformation is especially important for realizing its potential value as a\npharmaceutical. Several companies including UK startup COMPASS Pathways are\ncurrently developing synthetic psilocybin as a commercial drug product.\nPsilacetin provides the same benefits as psilocybin and is more potent than\npsilocybin at only 1\/100th of the cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cGetting the chance to work on the structure\nof psilacetin was a great opportunity,\u201d explained Dr. David R. Manke, Associate\nProfessor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts\nDartmouth. &nbsp;\u201cGiven the medicinal and economic importance of psilacetin, it\nis surprising that the structure was not known.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>CaaMTech researchers used single-crystal X-ray crystallography to solve psilacetin\u2019s\u00a0 structure on a diffractometer funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.acs.org\/content\/acs\/en\/careers\/college-to-career\/chemistry-careers\/cystallography.html\">According the American Chemical Society<\/a> X-ray crystallography \u201cis widely considered to be the gold standard for establishing the structures of crystalline solids.\u201d Max von Laue, Walter Friedrich, and Paul Knipping discovered X-ray diffraction by crystals in April 1912, for which von Laue was awarded the 1914 Nobel Prize in Physics. Since then, twenty-eight Nobel Prizes have been awarded for discoveries in crystallography, more than any other scientific field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Email press@caam.tech for more information.  <a href=\"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/CaaMTech-Psilacetin-Press-Release.zip\">Download the Media Kit here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"excerpt\">Psilacetin (4-AcO-DMT) primed to replace synthetic psilocybin and magic mushrooms in future psychedelic research<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}