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David E. Nichols

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David Earl Nichols
Born (1944-12-23) December 23, 1944 (age 81)
Covington, Kentucky, US
EducationUniversity of Cincinnati (BS, 1969)
University of Iowa (PhD, 1973)
Known forExtensive research into 5-HT2A receptor and dopamine receptors, SAR of hallucinogens, research into MDMA neurotoxicity and MDMA analogues
Scientific career
FieldsMedicinal chemistry
Pharmacology
WorkplacesUniversity of Iowa
Purdue University
Indiana University School of Medicine
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

David Earl Nichols (born December 23, 1944) is an American pharmacologist and medicinal chemist.[1][2] Previously the Robert C. and Charlotte P. Anderson Distinguished Chair in Pharmacology at Purdue University, Nichols has worked in the field of psychoactive drugs since 1969.[1] While still a graduate student, he patented the method that is used to make the optical isomers of psychedelic amphetamines. His contributions include the synthesis and reporting of escaline, LSZ, 6-APB, 2C-I-NBOMe and other NBOMe variants (NBOMe-2C-B, NBOMe-2C-C, NBOMe-2C-D), and several others, as well as the coining of the term "entactogen".

He is the founding president of the Heffter Research Institute, named after German chemist and pharmacologist Arthur Heffter, who first discovered that mescaline was the active component in the peyote cactus. In 2004 he was named the Irwin H. Page Lecturer by the former International Serotonin Club (now the International Society for Serotonin Research),[3] and delivered an address in Portugal titled, "35 years studying psychedelics: what a long strange trip it's been". Among pharmacologists, he is considered to be one of the world's top experts on psychedelics. He has also been described as the "greatest living psychedelic chemist" or "greatest living psychedelic scientist" by Hamilton Morris and others in the 2020s.[4][5] Nichols's other professional activities include teaching medicinal chemistry and molecular pharmacology at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN, and teaching medical students at the Indiana University School of Medicine. He officially retired in 2012 but has continued to work in the field.[1] As of 2019, Nichols was an adjunct professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, Chapel Hill, NC.[6]

Education

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Research areas

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Nichols is still carrying out academic research on the chemistry of psychedelics. He has published approximately 250 scientific reports and book chapters, all describing the relationship between the structure of a molecule and its biological effects (often referred to as a Structure-activity relationship, or SAR). He has done extensive work using the rat model assay of drug discrimination in characterizing hallucinogenic drugs.[8] Although his research mostly uses rats, a number of compounds included in Shulgin's PIHKAL were actually first synthesized in Nichols's lab. His lab also first developed [125I]-(R)-DOI as a radioligand. Nichols is one of the few people who has published legitimate research on the chemistry and pharmacology of LSD in the last 20 years, and first reported that several LSD analogues, including ETH-LAD, PRO-LAD, and AL-LAD, were more potent than LSD itself. Their human effects are described in TiHKAL. He also improved the synthesis of psilocybin so that it could be accessible for several recent clinical studies.[9]

Other notable research that he helped carry out includes extensive studies of the structure-activity relationships and mechanisms of action of MDA and MDMA, during which he helped to discover many novel analogues including such compounds as 5-methyl-MDA, 4-MTA and MDAI. Nichols has said that he believes gray-market chemists used information from papers he published on 4-methylthioamphetamine (MTA) in the 1990s to synthesize the drug, which they sold in tablets nicknamed "flatliners" as a substitute for MDMA (Ecstasy).[10]

More recently, Nichols has become one of the world leaders in research on dopamine, and his team has developed several notable dopamine receptor ligands, including the selective D1 full agonist compounds dihydrexidine and dinapsoline which have been researched for the treatment of Parkinson's disease, as well as a number of other subtype-selective dopamine agonists derived from dinoxyline. He co-founded DarPharma, Inc. to commercialize his dopamine compounds; several of his team's compounds are now being studied in clinical trials for the treatment of Parkinson's disease and the cognitive and memory deficits of schizophrenia.

Impact on the designer drug market

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Designer drug producers who scan scientific literature for information on compounds with potential grey market value have described Nichols' publications as an "especially valuable" road map to making new designer drugs.[11] Several deaths have been attributed to compounds that have been discovered in Nichols' lab, which he finds quite upsetting, "I was stunned by this revelation, and it left me with a hollow and depressed feeling for some time."[12]

Personal life

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Nichols has disclosed that he is writing three books as of the 2020s.[13][14] These books include a memoir, a collection of his letters with Alexander Shulgin, and a science fiction novel.[13][14]

See also

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References

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  1. 1 2 3 Oberhaus, Daniel (2 June 2017). "America's Trippiest Chemist: Making Psychedelics 'Was Fun'". VICE. Retrieved 18 July 2026.
  2. ↑ "The Heffter Review of Psychedelic Research, Volume 1, 1998 - 5. The Medicinal Chemistry of Phenethylamine Psychedelics by David E. Nichols, Ph.D." (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-07-04.
  3. ↑ "Home". serotoninclub.org.
  4. ↑ Hamilton Morris (27 November 2021). "PODCAST 34: A Four Hour Interview with Dr. David E Nichols". The Hamilton Morris Podcast (Podcast). Patreon. Archived from the original on 24 November 2022.
  5. ↑ Evan McGloughlin (2 April 2026). "Meet The Greatest Living Psychedelic Scientist You've Never Heard Of" (Podcast). Giant's Shoulder. No. 108. David E. Nichols (interviewee). Retrieved 18 July 2026.
  6. ↑ "David Nichols". Archived from the original on 6 September 2022. Retrieved 9 February 2019.
  7. ↑ "David E. Nichols, PhD, Robert C. and Charlotte P. Anderson Distinguished Chair in Pharmacology". Archived from the original on 2010-04-21. Retrieved 2010-04-09.
  8. ↑ Renaud Jardri; Arnaud Cachia; Pierre Thomas; Delphine Pins (2012). The Neuroscience of Hallucinations. Springer. pp. 262–263. ISBN 9781461441205.
  9. ↑ Nichols, David E, Frescas, Stewart (1999). "Improvements to the synthesis of psilocybin and a facile method for preparing the O-acetyl prodrug of psilocin". Synthesis. 1999 (6): 935–938. doi:10.1055/s-1999-3490. Retrieved October 18, 2024.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. ↑ Sullum, Jacob (2011-01-06) If Only There Were Some Way to Discourage the Marketing of Dangerous Substitutes for Banned Drugs..., Reason
  11. ↑ Whalen, Jeanne (Oct 30, 2010). "In Quest for 'Legal High,' Chemists Outfox Law". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 10 September 2013.
  12. ↑ Nichols, David (5 January 2011). "Legal highs: the dark side of medicinal chemistry". Nature. 469 (7): 7. Bibcode:2011Natur.469....7N. doi:10.1038/469007a. PMID 21209630.
  13. 1 2 Nick Jikomes (19 August 2021). "LSD, Mescaline, DMT, MDMA, Medicinal Chemistry & Psychedelic Medicine | David Nichols | 33". Nick Jikomes (Podcast). Mind & Matter Podcast: Science, Health, Metabolism. [50:44] So it's like I want to write some books. I haven't had a chance to write books but yeah I haven't I have not completely withdrawn from the field entirely. [50:54] What uh what do you want to write about? [50:57] Well I someone told me I should write my memoirs and I thought nobody's going to be interested and then my oldest son said yeah yeah people would be interested to hear about you so maybe I have um years of correspondence with Sasha Shogun. And I thought of a book called Conversations with Sasha where I pulled out little nuggets from our correspondents. And then I have a science fiction book that I'm I have the idea for that I'm working on. [...]
  14. 1 2 Dennis McKenna (14 February 2024). "The Alchemist: Reflections on a Lifetime of Psychedelic Chemistry". Brainforest Café Podcast (Podcast). McKenna Academy of Natural Philosophy. [00:05:26] Dave Nichols: I'm writing my memoir and the title is The Accidental Professor. [00:05:32] Dennis McKenna: There you go. That's a good one. So you're writing a memoir? [00:05:38] Dave Nichols: Yeah. [00:05:44] Dennis McKenna: When is that going to be published? [00:05:47] Dave Nichols: Oh, I don't know. I have to find somebody that wants to publish it first. I'm going through doing final edits. The beginning is boring. It's about my early life. And then I get into sort of my sociopathic behavior as a teenager, making explosives and tear gas and blowing things up, and then got into graduate school and somehow managed to end up working on psychedelics. And from there on it was like in my groove. [...]

Further reading

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