4 minute read
Inquiry + Innovation
Research Shortens Time to Treatment
By Carole Johnson
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Researchers at Miami University have been awarded two grants totaling $2.5 million from PsyBio Therapeutics Corp. to expedite progress toward clinical trials of a portfolio of neuropsychiatric drugs focused on mental health issues.
Research conducted by Assistant Professor J. Andrew Jones and students in his lab has piqued the interest of researchers at PsyBio, which is in the business of pioneering the next generation of psychoactive compounds for mental health treatment.
Last year, PsyBio and Miami joined forces to develop and test a new class of molecules to treat mental health challenges such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, and substance dependency.
In May 2020, the company awarded an initial $1 million grant to J. Andrew Jones in Miami’s department of chemical, paper, and biomedical engineering, and Matthew McMurray in Miami’s department of psychology.
The original grant served as startup funding to further expand on technology developed by Jones and a team of students in 2019 that enables the biosynthesis of psilocybin and other psychoactive molecules that occur naturally in certain plants and fungi.
Through metabolic engineering, Jones and his student assistants discovered a rapid way to produce psilocybin, a psychedelic drug found in mushrooms that shows great promise for treating depression and addiction. Currently, mass producing psilocybin requires extensive real estate and time. Alternative synthetic chemical production methods are expensive.
Determined to find a solution that maintains biological integrity and reduces production costs, Jones and his team developed a series of experiments to identify optimal psilocybin production conditions. Their work involved taking DNA from the mushroom and putting it in E. coli. Their result was a significant step toward demonstrating the feasibility of producing the drug economically from a biological source.
As Jones explains it, “It’s similar to the way you make beer, through a fermentation process. We are effectively taking the technology that allows for scale and speed of production and applying it to our psilocybin-producing E. coli.”
Rewiring the brain
Their work piqued the interest of researchers at PsyBio, which is in the business of pioneering the next generation of psychoactive compounds for mental health treatment.
The compounds, called tryptamines, are being studied to reverse the course of disease by rewiring the brain through contemplation and a change of perception. Many tryptamines are also known for their hallucinogenic properties and have been receiving international recognition for their therapeutic potential. These compounds act on and increase the synaptic and neurotransmitter activity in the brain that is responsible for stimulating the reward system.
Through novel application of pathway optimization techniques and metabolic engineering principles, Jones and his team discovered a way to sustainably produce
these promising drug candidates by genetically engineered E. coli bacteria.
“The initial collaboration between PsyBio and Miami University has resulted in the discovery and scaled production of two medically relevant tryptamine molecules that are naturally present in psychoactive magic mushrooms, psilocybin, and norbaeocystin,” said CEO Evan Levine, chairman of PsyBio, based in Coconut Creek, Fla.
He added that “the compounds have been efficiently synthesized and further studied in our laboratories and have now moved out of our labs into venerated commercial development facilities.”
In April of this year, the biotechnology company announced it was updating its research agreement. Under this expanded agreement, the Jones laboratory, which will continue to include research efforts from McMurray’s laboratory, plans to develop elite microbes capable of efficient production of a range of medically relevant alkaloids, or organic compounds. The amended agreement includes the additional $1.5 million to Miami until October 2023.
“This ground-breaking research and the collaboration with PsyBio Therapeutics Corp. illustrates Miami’s entrepreneurial makeup and showcases the ingenuity of our faculty and the brilliance of our students,” said Miami President Greg Crawford.
Jones, assistant professor and chairman of PsyBio’s Scientific Advisory Board, added, “We are extraordinarily fortunate to have the resources and relationships at Miami University to attract institutional investment capital that is interested in advancing a paradigm shift in the treatment of mental health.”
Preparing for human trials
Jones and McMurray, whose research focuses on pharmacology and neuroscience, will advance candidate molecules from initial drug discovery to animal efficacy studies, faster, cheaper, and greener with this financial support from PsyBio. Such studies are necessary before any new drugs can be advanced to clinical trials.
“Our work with the McMurray Lab and PsyBio enables my lab’s discoveries to rapidly advance from discovery to in vivo validation and industrial application, ultimately shortening the time between discovery and treatment of patients,” Jones said.
McMurray brings his expertise in cognitive neuroscience and pharmacology to the project.
“I also bring my extensive experience in animal models of mental health disorders, to incorporate broadscale animal studies in combination with Dr. Jones’ biosynthetic production platform,” said McMurray, assistant professor and also a member of PsyBio’s Scientific Advisory Board.
McMurray’s lab plans to conduct animal behavioral studies to verify the antidepressant, anxiolytic, antiaddictive effects of the alkaloids produced in the Jones lab, using both adult and adolescent animal models of disease.
These studies, performed at Miami, will screen leading drug candidates in preparation for human trials. Preliminary studies have already detected evidence of an unexpected synergy between psilocybin and norbaeocystin, and the company has advanced both drug candidates to commercial process development.
