Last week I linked to an announcement of COMPASS Pathways’ new virtually-distributed Drug Discovery Center, and this week two additional new psychedelic research centers were announced. Before I get to them, allow me to sneak in a link to yet another psychedelic research center that was launched early this month that I forgot to link to before—Massachusetts General Hospital’s new Center for Neuroscience of Psychedelics.
This week’s new psychedelic research centers will be based in New York and Jamaica. Here’s the press release from NYU Langone Health about the first one:
When fully developed, the NYU Langone Center for Psychedelic Medicine, under the auspices of NYU Langone’s Department of Psychiatry, will support health-focused research across the translational spectrum, from basic science to phase III clinical trials. Principally, it will have three transdisciplinary areas of focus: psychiatry, medicine, and preclinical research.
In addition, a robust training program, the Psychedelic Medicine Research Training Program—which differentiates this center from others—will support the development of early career faculty members and postdoctoral fellows to become independent investigators in the field of psychedelic medicine.
And here’s the press release in Psilocybin Alpha about Aion Therapeutic’s new Jamaica-based center:
Aion Therapeutic Inc. (CSE: AION) (“Aion Therapeutic” or the “Company“) announced today the opening of the Aion International Center for Psychedelic Psychiatry in Jamaica. The Center will initially specialize in the use of psilocybin for the treatment of addiction (tobacco, alcohol, and other drug misuse), depression and anxiety associated with life-threatening illnesses, treatment-resistant depression, and major depressive disorder (MDD). In addition, the Center will be studying the effectiveness of psilocybin as a new therapy for opioid addiction, Alzheimer’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and anorexia nervosa.
Just last month I mentioned that since there weren’t a plethora of psychedelic research centers that I would continue to highlight new ones when they open, and now it’s starting to appear that—just like pretty much everything else involving psychedelics over the past few years—these research centers went from few-and-far-between to ubiquitous and common in no time flat. At this point I will probably continue to highlight new research centers in my weekly roundups and monthly recaps here on Think Wilder, but from here on out I’m not sure it’s worth pointing out every single new center in link posts like this one.
This is following an overall trend in psychedelic news that I’m starting to really feel and am trying to figure out how to address. Essentially I have to ask myself the following question every time I come across a new psychedelic news story—is this a newsworthy event? Things that are considered newsworthy now are completely different than what would have been considered newsworthy a few years (or even a few months) ago. I see it as part of my job to highlight newsworthy items as they pop up, but I’m starting to get psychedelic news whiplash so I’m trying to re-calibrate what should be shared, and when and where to share it. Eventually I’ll strike the right balance, so thanks for bearing with me until then.
At any rate, I’m excited to see all four of these new psychedelic research centers this month and I’m looking forward their future contributions toward the body of psychedelic science.