Future of Psychedelics – An interactive virtual conference with the top minds in psychedelics

Early in his career Dr Shapiro served as the head of the Alzheimer chemistry group at Sandoz, the company first responsible for discovering LSD and marketing psilocybin. Including senior roles at various companies including Novartis developing novel CNS drugs. Dr. Shapiro spent the last several years as the Chief Science Officer at Rugen Therapeutics, a leading drug discovery company backed by Allergan and Fidelity Biosciences, with a therapeutic goal to correct synaptic dysfunction using an improved version of ketamine.

Andrea Turnipseed LCSW-S is the co-founder and Executive Director of Roots Behavioral Health, a Austin based psychiatric practice offering innovative and holistic mental healthcare. Andrea runs the day-to-day operations of two clinic locations, provides individual therapy, and Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP). Since 2018, Andrea has helped expand and develop KAP at Roots through training, supervising, and consulting with a team of therapists. Andrea has co-authored cardinal research on KAP and regularly speaks to the community on the therapeutic uses of Ketamine.

Wyly is a United States Marine and the leading voice supporting guided psychedelic group therapy for veterans. As Founding Director of Veterans of War, Wyly is deeply committed to changing the mental health paradigm regarding trauma, plant medicine, and veteran suicide. Wyly has survived a broken family, foster care, two deployments in support of the War on Terror, and Post Traumatic Stress (PTS). Through his work with Veterans of War, he experienced firsthand the strength of guided psychedelic therapy in battles against treatment-resistant trauma, depression, anxiety, insomnia, and PTS. Thanks to plant medicines, Wyly overcame suicidal thoughts and ideations, found sleep again, and cemented his purpose to bring safe and effective tools for recovery out of the shadows to serve those suffering from the treatment-resistant after-effects of war. Wyly passionately believes that entheogenic plant medicines offer a unique path forward towards recovery from trauma and he is part of ballot initiatives advocating for their decriminalization.

Zappy Zapolin, entrepreneur and psychedelic advocate. Zappy is the director of the award-winning documentary “The Reality of Truth,” a documentary about spirituality narrated by Michelle Rodriquez and featuring Deepak Chopra, Ram Dass, Marianne Williamson, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and other noted spiritual teachers. The provocative movie explores the relationship between spirituality, religion, and plant medicine. Zappy's work is an exploration of the spiritual insights that the psychedelic experience offers.

Ian is responsible for developing the overall strategic vision as well as adroitly assembling the intellectual and capital resources to bring scientific innovations to market. Prior to Bright Minds, he served on the management team at Avnel Gold – a TSX-listed gold mining, exploration, and development company with operations in Southwestern Mali in West Africa. In that capacity, McDonald developed and implemented the corporate strategy resulting in a $160 million sale to Endeavor Mining within one year. Before Avnel, he worked in a senior role at a Canadian Investment Bank and in Private equity in Vancouver, London and Toronto. He maintained deep relationships with investors and helped develop capital market strategies for issuers. Under McDonald’s guidance, clients raised hundreds of millions of dollars in capital. Ian has served as a member of the Board of Directors of several TSX Venture Exchange, Canadian Securities Exchange-listed and private companies

Dr. Laban holds a BS in Biochemistry from UIC Chicago, MS Chemistry from UCLA and a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from Purdue University. He completed two postdoctoral degrees at UFRJ (Rio de Janeiro) in drug discovery and industrial synthesis of pharmaceuticals. During the doctoral studies in Prof. David Nichols' lab, he created various psychedelic tryptamines and dopamine agonists for better understanding of Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia and addiction. In Brazil, he developed industrial synthesis of various anticancer, anti-inflammatory and Alzheimer drugs. He is a chess master and master of Brazilian percussion. EWELABS provides natural solutions (especially for neurodegenerative diseases and cancer) using spagyric medicines from the rainforest, homeopathy and psychedelic medicines based on the knowledge of ancient Afro-Brazilian spiritual traditions, medical astrology and Ayurveda.

Morgan McDonald is a business lawyer, practising corporate and commercial law with startup and growth ‎companies. Morgan’s practice is focused on assisting founders, startup and growth companies in a variety of sectors. By representing several leading commercial endeavours in psychedelic medicine, Morgan has established herself as one of the premier legal voices in the emerging industry. Morgan has also been heavily involved in assisting ‎clients in the emerging cannabis sector since inception and has helped companies navigate new regulation and rapid ‎growth in the space. Morgan provides value to new and repeat entrepreneurs using a ‎business centric and practical approach to solving business and legal needs from incorporation through exit.

Honing his skills at arguably the top two psychedelic research labs on earth, Nichols Lab at Purdue and the Roth Lab At UNC. Dr. McCorvy is among the top psychedelic scientists in his generation. The McCorvy lab studies G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) recognition and signaling involved in various psychoactive and physiological effects present in human disease, with an emphasis on psychedelic, antipsychotic, and antidepressant drug action. In particular, the lab studies the phenomenon known as “biased signaling” or “functional selectivity”, whereby drugs for any given receptor can exhibit a spectrum of signal transduction pathways, G protein-dependent (e.g. Gq, Gs, Gi) or G protein-independent (e.g. β-arrestin). The ultimate aim of the lab is to profile, delineate, and exploit key signal transduction pathways using a combination of chemical biology, structure-based drug design, medicinal chemistry and high-throughput screening (HTS) technologies.

Dr. Kozikowski, trained at Michigan, Berkeley, and Harvard, began his own career as an organic chemist at the University of Pittsburgh. Following his interests in the applications of chemistry to biological problems, he moved on to the Mayo Clinic, and then assumed a position at the Georgetown University Medical Center as Director of the Drug Discovery Program. After a decade at Georgetown, he led a research group at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry. Dr. Kozikowski has established himself as a leading drug designer in America. His skill is in altering modifying molecules to create superior versions. Dr. Kozikowski is highly experienced designing serotonergic drugs, the receptor family responsible for psychedelic therapeutic action. Over 550 publications and over 100 patents.

Quintin is the Lead Engineer at Qualia Research Institute based in San Francisco, currently developing a noninvasive neurotech platform to induce concentration meditation and psychedelic-like states. This work builds upon research from Imperial College London’s Robin Carhart-Harris on dynamical systems models for psychedelics. He has a background in cognitive neuroscience and computer science and has done original research into the development of psychedelic therapeutics for treating acute and chronic pain. Later this year he will be a featured speaker at the Harvard Intercollegiate Psychedelics Conference, discussing new tools for the next generation of digital therapeutics.

Matthew W. Johnson, Ph.D., Professor at Johns Hopkins, is one of the world’s most widely published scientists on the human effects of psychedelics. He has conducted research in behavioral pharmacology for >20 years and with psychedelics for 16 years. He has guided >100 psychedelic sessions and supervised several hundred. Matt developed psilocybin as a treatment for tobacco addiction, and published research on psilocybin regarding cancer-related depression/anxiety treatment, mystical experience, personality change, safety guidelines, rescheduling, and seminal research with salvinorin A. He is also known for research in the behavioral economics of addiction, sexual risk, and tobacco regulation. He is President of the International Society for Research on Psychedelics. Matt has been widely interviewed, including by 60 Minutes, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, BBC, CNN, Fox Business News, NPR, NBC News, and Michael Pollan.

Dr. Schindler is a board-certified Neurologist at Yale School of Medicine and has expertise in headache medicine. Among her efforts to optimize the management of headache disorders, she has developed and executed the first controlled trials investigating the effects and mechanisms of action of psilocybin in cluster, migraine, and post-traumatic headache, ongoing since 2016. Previously, Dr. Schindler studied the neuropharmacology of psychedelics and other serotonergic compounds in the context of receptor binding and intracellular signaling. Currently, she seeks to identify the source of sustained reductions in headache burden after limited dosing of psychedelic and related compounds, considering several neurobiological systems involved in both headache pathology and the known actions of psychedelic compounds.

Timothy Ko has a broad background of leading private ventures in the Service Sector, Investor Relations, Retail and Technology. Most recently he served as Director of Hyperbridge Technology, a company focussed on the development of decentralized technologies that facilitate crowdfunding. Timothy’s passion for the Entheogen space is shaped by firsthand knowledge of the shortcomings of the current mental health system and through his exposure to psychedelics which he credits with saving his life. Following the loss of a loved one to a decades’ long fight with mental health and addictions, and through his personal experiences, Timothy was delighted to commit himself to the life saving potential of this new frontier of medicine.

Harsh has a Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology with a penchant for research in psychedelics and its psychological constructs. He brings many years of experience from the lab and the clinic.

Florian is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of ATAI Life Sciences, a global biotech company builder with the vision of ultimately ending mental health disorders. Prior to joining ATAI, Florian was the co-founder and Managing Director of Springlane, Germany’s leading online kitchen appliance retailer. Although Florian suffered from anxiety in his youth, he was able to achieve remission through a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and a robust meditation practice. Nevertheless, his experiences seeing his friends and loved ones failed by the mental healthcare system inspired him to join the movement to transform the the treatment landscape for patients who have been unable to find relief in currently available therapies. “We know that mental healthcare is likely the single largest unmet medical need in the world. We know that what’s out there now isn’t working. And we know that there are better options. So, let’s bridge the gap together.”

Amar is the CEO and co-founder of Elevated Signals, which is a software platform for biomolecule producers who need better ways to manage their operations, ensure regulatory compliance, and remain competitive. Prior to Elevated Signals, Amar worked on research facilities including the Biotron Experimental Climate Change Research Centre, the extraterrestrial Autonomous Robotic Greenhouse, and the Cairns Health and Bioscience Research Complex’s containment level 3 lab – while doing so, he became passionate about controlled environment agriculture as it pertains to sustainable food supply as well as to the production of molecules with the ability to benefit health and society. Amar holds a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu alongside various degrees in environmental science, water engineering, and business from the University of Toronto, Western University, and the University of British Columbia.

Ryan Zurrer is a venture investor and entrepreneur for 16 years. He has also been an avid biohacker and early contributing member to the Quantified Self Movement in the early 2000s. Ryan was a seed investor in some of the best performing venture investments of the 2010s including as MakerDAO, Ethereum, Polychain Capital and a host of other companies. Ryan launched Polychain’s private investment activities and is considered the creator of the SAFT. Ryan led Polychain Capital’s investment team and was instrumental in delivering Polychain's 2017 returns (in excess of 28X net of fees to LPs). Ryan has built a reputation for being a hands-on, value-add venture investor with a uniquely global purview. Previously he was CEO of a large Brazilian renewables firm and is responsible for more than 1GW of wind and solar power development globally along with a range of innovations in contracting, financial instruments and execution of utility-scale renewable energy projects. Ryan is an honours graduate of the Richard Ivey School of Business where he received the Certificate of Entrepreneurship as well as the Continuing Athletics Scholarship as a member of the Men’s varsity Rugby team.