The Heffter Research Institute
Scientific Advisory Panel

In addition to the Founders and members of the Board of Directors, the Institute has created a Scientific Advisory Panel. This panel consists of leading research scientists and clinicians from a variety of academic and clinical settings. The primary function of the panel is to assist the Institute scientists in designing appropriate protocols for research with psychedelic agents. All of the members of the Scientific Advisory Panel have recognized interests in the study of various aspects of consciousness and drugs which affect consciousness. Many of the Scientific Advisors have extensive experience working with the Food and Drug Administration and designing protocols for clinical studies. The cumulative research experience and the backgrounds of these advisors provides an important resource and ensures that research protocols will stand up to the scrutiny of external reviews. Many of the clinical studies with psychedelic agents in the past lacked this important element of external peer review, and as a consequence much of the data generated from those studies is considered unreliable or inconclusive. The founders believe that input from this panel of experts will prevent such a situation from recurring as we move forward into a new era of research with psychedelic agents.

Present members of the Scientific Advisory Panel Include the following scientists and clinicians:

Burton M. Angrist, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine and Staff Psychiatrist at the affiliated Veteran's Administration Medical Center. A graduate of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Dr. Angrist has extensive experience in clinical studies of schizophrenia, psychostimulant addiction, and the effects of psychostimulant administration in both normal volunteers and psychiatric patients.

Enoch Callaway, M.D., Enoch Callaway, M.D., Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, RETIRED, has had a long-standing interest in the effects of drugs on human information processing, and on the use of neural network models for use in studying human information processing.

Jace Callaway, Ph.D., is a faculty member in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Kuopio, Finland. His research efforts have focused on endogenous beta-carbolines, and other tryptaime derivatives, since 1986, with a special interest in investigating neurochemical mechanisms of consciousness and behavior. Strong background in analytical and synthetic organic chemistry, with extensive experience in pharmacognosy and pharmacology, especially in the quantitative analysis of chemicals in plants, humans and other animals. He is a collaborator on the Hoasca Project, with Dennis McKenna and Charles Grob, which began in 1992. During the last decade, he developed and registered Finola, a short variety of Cannabis sativa that is grown throughout Canada and the EU for the industrial production of healthy foods and animal feed; www.finola.com.

Arvid Carlsson, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Goteborg, Sweden. His fundamental research led to the use of L-DOPA in the treatment of Parkinson's disease, and laid the basis for the "dopamine hypothesis" of schizophrenia. He continues to be in the forefront of research on dopamine neurotransmission in the brain. His present efforts are directed toward understanding the neurochemical basis for schizophrenia. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine, 2000.

Patricia S. Churchland, M.D., Dr. Churchland is UC President's Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, and Adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute. She has received many honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship from 1991-1996. Since the early 1980's, she has sought to integrate research in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, and has been very influential in exploring and promoting the idea that the mind is the brain, and that in order to fully understand how the mind works, we must investigate the structure and function of the brain. She is the author of Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain (1986), The Computational Brain (1992, with Terrence Sejnowski), and Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy (2002 MIT Press).

Pedro L. Delgado, M,D. is Douglas Bond Professor and Chairman, Department of Psychiatry, University Hospitals of Cleveland and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. His research aims to understand the neurobiological basis of major depressive and obsessive compulsive disorders and role of monoamine neurotransmitter systems in the mechanism of action of psychotropic drugs, including antidepressant, antiobsessional, and psychedelic compounds.

Euphrosyne Gouzoulis-Mayfrank, M.D., is currently a Staff Psychiatrist in the Psychiatric Department of the Technical University (RWTH), Aachen, Germany, with research interests in several areas, but including the study of the effects of mescaline in the model psychosis paradigm, as well as studies of the psychological, neuroendocrine, cardiovascular and sleep-EEG effects of the entactogen 3,4-methylenedioxyethylamphetamine (MDE). She is currently carrying out psychopathological studies with standardized psychopathometric instruments for the assessment of psychedelic-like phenomena in patients with endogenous psychoses.

Roland R. Griffiths, Ph.D., is Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His principal research focus in both clinical and preclinical laboratories has been on the behavioral and subjective effects of mood-altering drugs.  He has been a consultant to the National Institutes of Health and to numerous pharmaceutical companies in the development of new psychotropic drugs, and he is currently a member of the Expert Advisory Panel on Drug Dependence for the World Health Organization.  He is Principal Investigator of the psilocybin research project at Johns Hopkins, which has recently shown that psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance.

Leo Hermle, M.D., Head of the Department of Psychiatry, "Christophsbad,", Göppingen, Germany, has studied the effects of arylalkylamines in humans using modern research methodology, characterizing psychological, cardiovascular, neuroendocrine, sleep-EEG, and neurometabolic data for compounds such as mescaline, and the entactogen MDE. Meanwhile we study the different neuropsychological, neurobiological and possible neurotoxic effects of (R) and (S)-Eanantiomers of MDE and MDMA. We suppose that the R-MDMA is the likely candidate for the neurotoxic effects.

Francis Huxley, M.A., Anthropologist, Santa Fe, NM, did his major field work among a tribe of Brazilian Indians, exploring 17,000 miles of the Amazon basin and studying its native populations. He did early work with Humphrey Osmond in Canada, has reported on the use of psychedelic snuff by Yanomamo Indians, and documented the early use of LSD in the West and in the third world.

Barry L. Jacobs, Ph.D., Professor , Program in Neuroscience, Princeton University, is internationally recognized for his research into the role of brain monoamine neurotransmitters in physiology and behavior. A primary technique used in this research has been recording the activity of single neurons (units) in the brain.   His current research focuses on the factors that regulate neurogenesis in the adult hippocampus.

Reese T. Jones, M.D., is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. He is director of a National Institute on Drug Abuse funded Drug Dependence Clinical Research Center studying the clinical psychopharmacology of self-administered drugs ranging from caffeine and nicotine to cocaine and opiates. For some years he has chaired the UCSF Committee on Human Research. He has long been interested in relationships between naturally occurring and drug induced altered states of consciousness.

Stanley A. Lorens, Ph.D., Professor of Pharmacology, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL, has a long-standing interest in the neuropharmacology of psychoactive substances. He has been a pioneer in the study of the anatomy and behavioral functions of the neurotransmitter serotonin in mammalian brain.

Athina Markou, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego and Adjunct Professor at the Molecular and Integrative Neurosciences Department of of The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Her research efforts focus on the investigation of the neurobiology of reward, motivation and emotion as they relate to depression, schizophrenia and drug abuse, and on understanding how psychotropic drugs affect these brain processes.

Deborah C. Mash, Ph.D., Jeanne C. Levey Professor, Departments of Neurology and Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology, University of Miami School of Medicine, Miami, FL, is primarily interested in identifying morphological and neurochemical consequences of cocaine abuse on neural architecture of the human brain. The group under her direction was credited with the discovery of cocaethylene - the cocaine and alcohol metabolite that is longer acting and more potent as a euphoriant than the parent drug. New research ideas involve the identification of lead drugs that might be beneficial for the treatment of cocaine and opiate dependence. The hallucinogenic indole alkaloid ibogaine is under active current preclinical and clinical evaluation.

Robert B. Millman, M.D., Saul P. Steinberg Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Public Health at the Cornell University Medical College and the Director of the Drug and Alcohol Service at the New York Hospital-Payne Whitney Psychiatric clinic. He has developed a variety of innovative research and treatment programs focused on the interface between psychiatric disorders and psychoactive drug usage. He has a longstanding interest in the relationship of psychedelic agents to altered states of consciousness, learning, and psychiatric and behavioral disorders.

Francisco A. Moreno, M.D.. Dr. Moreno is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. He has been conducting research in the biology and treatment of mood and anxiety disorders, geared to improve our understanding of the brain basis for mental illness and the underlying mechanism of action of antidepressants/antianxiety drugs and treatment resistance. He is also conducting a study of psilocybin in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder, the first American therapeutic study with an hallucinogen in 30 years. He currently serves as Director of Psychiatry Residency Training at the Arizona Health Sciences Center.

Charles D. Nichols, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. He previously trained with Dr. Elaine Sander-Bush at Vanderbilt Univsersity. He has been investigating the effects of serotonergic agents, including halucinogens, on gene expression patterns in the prefrontal cortex. He has also developed a genetic model system using the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, to study and elucidate the pathways linking serotonergic drug action at neurotransmitter receptors to specific behaviors. Together, these mammalian and fly models represent an an important new direction for understanding the molecular basis of hallucinogenic drug action and how they influence behaviors.

Russell E. Poland, Ph.D., is a Professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA, Director of Research, Department of Psychiatry, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He has a long-standing involvement in various aspects of biological psychiatry, with a major interest in the effects of psychoactive drugs on neurotransmitter function in relation to sleep and neuroendocrine parameters in psychiatric patients.

Bryan L. Roth MD, PhD., Dr. Roth is currently Professor of Biochemistry at Case Western Reserve University Medical School and the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health Psychoactive Drug Screening Program (NIMH-PDSP). Dr. Roth received his MD/PhD in Biochemistry from St. Louis University Medical School and completed post-doctoral training in the Laboratory of Preclinical Pharmacology at the NIMH under the supervision of Dr. Erminio Costa. Dr. Roth also performed a residency in Psychiatry at Stanford University where he was also a Dana Foundation Fellow in the Nancy Pritzker Laboratory of Molecular and Developmental Neurobiology under the late Roland Ciaranello, MD. Dr. Roth’s research is devoted to discovering how psychoactive compounds exert their actions at levels ranging from the most fundamental (e.g. atomic) to the most applied (e.g. human). Dr. Roth has received many honors including the Award for Outstanding Basic Science Research from the Heffter Research Institute, a National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Depression Young Investigator Award (NARSAD) and an Independent Investigator Award from NARSAD where he was also awarded the title Sandoz Investigator. Dr. Roth has served on the editorial boards of 8 major scientific journals including the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, Psychopharmacology, Neuropsychopharmacology and the Journal of Receptors and Signal Transduction Research. Additionally, Dr. Roth is a Handling Editor for the Journal of Neurochemistry and an Associate Editor for Pharmacology and Therapeutics. Dr. Roth is a frequent consultant for major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies (e.g. Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb) and has served as a regular member for three separate NIH Study sections. Dr. Roth’s work has led to the successful filing and awarding of three US Patents for novel candidate medications for the treatment of psychiatric and neurological medications.

Juan R. Sanchez-Ramos, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor of Neurology at the University of South Florida, Director of Stem Cell Research,Center for Aging and Brain Repair, Tampa, FL. His current research projects movement disorders, the neurobiology of adult tissue stem cells, and DNA repair mechanisms in aging neurons. He has had a long-standing interest in the history of hallucinogenic drug use in different cultures as well as in their untapped potential in experimental therapeutics. Most recently he is investigating the relationship between neurogenesis in adult brain and the use of tryptaminergic drugs.

Elaine Sanders-Bush, Ph.D., Professor of Pharmacology, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, is internationally recognized for her studies of the role of serotonin receptors in the action of a variety of psychoactive drugs and has published pioneering work on the roles of the serotonin 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C receptor subtypes in the actions of hallucinogens.

 Stacy Schaefer, Ph.D.,  Associate Professor of Anthropology, Chair of the Department of Anthropology, and Co-Director, Museum of Anthropology, California State University, Chico, has worked among the Huichol Indians of Mexico for over 20 years researching many aspects of the Huichol culture. For the last eight years she has also worked with members of the Native American Church who make pilgrimages to the Texas peyote country. She is co-editor and contributor along with Peter T. Furst of the volume People of the Peyote: Huichol History, Religion and Survival, published in 1996 by University of New Mexico Press. newest book - To Think with A Good Heart: Wixarika (Huichol) Women, Weavers, and Shamans. University of Utah Press, 2002. Her most recent research focuses on a holistic study of coca use among Andean indigenous people in Chile and Bolivia.

Michael A. Schwartz, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of Hawaii, and Founding President of the Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry, has a long standing interest the phenomenology of mental states and mental disorders, more recently combining phenomenology and psychopathology with approaches derived from cognitive neuroscience. Dr. Schwartz has received the Swiss Dr.Margrit Egner-Stiftung Prize (1998, with Osborne Wiggins, Ph.D.) for "contributing with their work to a more human world in which the human being with its mental needs stands in the center" and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award (2000) from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.  He is co-Editor, with Gregory Ordway and Alan Frazer, of Brain Norepinephrine: Neurobiology and Therapeutics (2006 Cambridge University Press).

Lewis S. Seiden, Ph.D., Professor of Pharmacology, The University of Chicago, is internationally known for his work on the relationship between psychoactive drugs, neurotransmitter biochemistry, and behavior, with a particular focus on the effects of the substituted amphetamines on brain monoamine neurochemistry.

Alexander T. Shulgin, Ph.D., Chemist and Psychopharmacology Consultant, Lafayette, CA., author of PIHKAL (Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved) and its sequel TIHKAL (Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved), for more than three decades carried out pioneering clinical studies of psychedelic phenethylamine derivatives, and created and developed the largest single data base on the human psychopharmacology of substituted phenethylamines.

Manfred Spitzer, M.D., Ph.D, Medical Director, professor and chairman (Head of Department) of the newly established Psychiatric Hospital at the University of Ulm. Research Activities focus on higher cognitive functions at the interface between cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and psychopathology; using multimodal neuroimaging techniques, such as event related potentials, functional magnetic resonance imaging, transcranial magnetic stimulation and experimental neuropsychological methods. Since 2004 chairman if the newly established Transfer Center for Neurosciences and Learning. Current activities include a weekly TV appearance in the educational channel of Bavaria (BR-alpha), named 'Geist & Gehirn' (mind & brain). Several books appeard on best-selling lists in Germany.

Stephen Szára, M.D., D.Sc., Research Consultant, Kensington, MD., Former Chief of the Biomedical Branch, Division of Preclinical Research, National Institute on Drug Abuse, pioneered research on psychoactive tryptamines for more than two decades, and later pursued research on marijuana and the cannabinoids. He presently serves on the editorial boards of several neurobiology and psychopharmacology periodicals.

Charles T. Tart, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of California, Davis, Core Faculty, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, and Senior Research Fellow of the Institute for Noetic Sciences, Sausalito, CA. is an internationally known researcher of altered states of consciousness and has written a number of well-known books, two of which have become classics in this field. He has an archive of articles on the internet at www.paradigm-sys.com/cttart/ and his The Archives of Scientists' Transcendent Experiences (TASTE) project has won the year 2000 award of the Institute of Social Inventions for the most innovative science project. www.issc-taste.org

Roger Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor of Psychiatry, Philosophy, and Anthropology and Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Irvine. He is a recognized authority on meditation, shamanism, and the interface between religion and psychiatry. His publications include Paths Beyond Ego and Essential Spirituality: the Seven Central Practices. His current research interests include comparisons and integrations among different psychologies and psychotherapies, the psychobiology of meditation, the nature of psychological health and well-being, spirituality, and the psychological dimensions of global threats to human survival.

Andrew T. Weil, M.D., Andrew T. Weil, MD is Clinical Professor of Medicine and Director of the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ. He is training a new generation of physicians and other health professionals to better serve consumers of health care by combining conventional alternative methods and ideas. Dr. Weil has done extensive research in ethnopharmacology, has authored many books, and maintains a popular website: www.drweil.com.

Special Consultants

Henry David Abraham, M.D., Lecturer, Harvard Medical School

Jeanne Achterberg, Ph.D., Psychologist, Saybrook Institute

Richard Alpert, Ph.D., Psychologist, Hanuman Foundation

James Bakalar, J.D., Lecturer in Law, Dept. of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Dana Baldwin, Ph.D., Anthropologist, UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute

Jerome Beck, Dr. P.H., Public Health Researcher, Institute for Scientific Analysis

Gary Bravo, M.D., Psychiatrist, Sonoma County Mental Health

Jeffrey Bronfman, President, Aurora Foundation

Bruce Cassels, Ph.D., Professor of Chemistry, Universidad de Chile, Faculty of Sciences

Samuel T. Christian, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Neurobiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Jim DeKorne, Ethnobotanist and Publisher, The Entheogen Review

Marlene Dobkin De Rios, Ph.D., Assoc. Clinical Professor of Psychiatry & Human Behavior, University of California, Irvine

Rick Doblin, Ph.D., President, Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, Inc.

Donna Dryer, M.D., Psychiatrist, Orenda Institute

Betty Eisner, Ph.D., Psychologist and Writer, Santa Monica, California

James Fadiman, Ph.D., Psychologist & Writer, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology

Marilyn Ferguson, Publisher, Brain/Mind

Michael Gilbert, M.B.A., President, Albert Hofmann Foundation

Lester Grinspoon, M.D., Psychiatrist & Professor, Harvard Medical School

Stanislav Grof, M.D., Psychiatrist & Professor of Psychology, California Institute of Integral Studies

Constance Grauds, RPh, President, Association of Natural Medicine Pharmacists

Kathleen Harrison, President, Botanical Dimensions, Inc.

Andrew Hoffman, Ph.D., Medicinal Chemist, Monticello, Illinois

Julie Holland, M.D., Clinical Instructor, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY

Albert Hofmann, Ph.D., Director of Research (ret.), Department of Natural Products, Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, Basel

Oscar Janiger, M.D., Psychiatrist & Co-Founder, Albert Hofmann Foundation

Howard Kornfeld, M.D., Fellow, American College of Emergency Medicine

Stanley Krippner, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Saybrook Institute

Evgeny Krupitsky, M.D., Psychiatrist, Leningrad Regional Dispensary of Narcology

Igor Kungurtsev, M.D., Psychiatrist & Adjunct Professor, California Institute of Integral Studies

David Lukoff, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Saybrook Institute

Luis Eduardo Luna, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, Swedish School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland

Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., Psychologist, California Institute of Integral Studies

Ethan A. Nadelmann, Ph.D., Director, The Lindesmith Center

J. Frank Nash, Ph.D., Research Toxicologist, West Chester, Ohio

Jonathan Ott, Ethnopharmacologist, and President, Natural Products Co.

David Presti, Ph.D., Program Director, Substance Abuse Inpatient Unit, VA Medical Center, San Francisco

David L. Racette, M.D., FACS, FACPE, Physician, West Lafayette, IN

David B. Repke, Senior Chemist, Syntex Discovery Research

William A. Richards, Ph.D., Private Practice & Senior Fellow, Council on Spiritual Practices, Baltimore, Maryland.

June Riedlinger, Pharm.D., Clinical Pharmacist, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy

Thomas B. Roberts, Ph.D., Professor, School of Education, Northern Illinois University

Myron Stolaroff, Director, Ex-Officio, Albert Hofmann Foundation

Requa Tolbert, M.S.N., Psychiatric Nurse, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Philip Wolfson, M.D., UCSF Department of Psychiatry, San Francisco

Richard Yensen, Ph.D., Psychologist, Orenda Institute