MindMed Appoints University of North Carolina Psychiatrist and Pharmacologist Dr. Bryan Roth to Scientific Advisory Board
MindMed (NASDAQ: MNMD) (NEO: MMED), a leading biotech company developing psychedelic-inspired therapies, is pleased to announce the addition of Bryan L. Roth, MD, PhD to its Scientific Advisory Board.
Dr. Roth has spent over 30 years studying molecular neuropharmacology. He is the Michael Hooker Distinguished Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of North Carolina’s (UNC) School of Medicine. He is also the director of the National Institute of Mental Health Psychoactive Drug Screening Program.
Dr. Roth’s research focuses on removing the hallucinogenic effects from psychedelic drugs; eliminating the hours-long hallucinatory trips that may turn some patients away from psychedelic-assisted treatments. He was among the first to publish in the scientific journal, Cell, the structure of how LSD binds to serotonin receptors within the brain. This structure is crucial to help scientists understand why psychedelics can have hallucinogenic and therapeutic effects.
Dr. Roth’s search for drugs that bind to and activate serotonin receptors without causing a psychedelic experience secured a $27 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a research and development agency of the US Department of Defense that helps advance emerging technologies. The grant helped fund Ultra Large-Scale-Docking, a computer program which can generate a billion theoretical psychedelic compounds that all score differently in how they activate the 5-HT-2A serotonin receptor. Dr. Roth’s team is studying the compounds Ultra Large-Scale-Docking identifies which are the likeliest to activate the serotonin receptor without triggering hallucinations.
We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Roth to our Scientific Advisory Board. In the pursuit of reimagining mental health and addiction care, we want to ensure the treatments we’re studying are effective and accessible for as many patients as possible. Dr. Roth’s extensive experience in psychiatry and pharmacology will be invaluable in progressing all of our research and development efforts.
MindMed CEO Robert Barrow
Dr. Roth noted, “Psychedelic compounds like psilocybin have some of the most robust antidepressant effects I’ve ever seen in Phase II studies. But not all patients are comfortable with their treatment program requiring hallucinatory trips. My research, and the perspective I’m excited to bring to MindMed’s drug development programs, focuses on how we can make drugs that are maximally helpful to patients while minimizing discomfort in the treatment process.”
MindMed’s Scientific Advisory Board is composed of a diverse group of members with expertise in psychiatry, neuroscience, and clinical development. The Scientific Advisory Board leverages decades of experience in biotechnology and psychiatry to guide MindMed’s development programs. Members represent institutions such as Johns Hopkins University, New York University Langone Health, Duke University, the National Institutes of Health, Stanford University, and Massachusetts General Hospital.
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