David E. Nichols
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David E. Nichols (born December 23, 1944) is an American pharmacologist and medicinal chemist.
He is a professor at Purdue University who has worked in the field of psychoactive drugs since 1969. While still a graduate student, he patented the method that is used to make the optical isomers of hallucinogenic amphetamines. His contributions include the synthesis and reporting of escaline and the naming of entactogen. His work as a chemist is exceptional in that he is still carrying out legitimate research on the chemistry of psychedelics. He has published more than 250 scientific reports and book chapters, all describing the relationship between the structure of a molecule and its biological effects. Although his research mostly uses rats, a number of compounds included in Shulgin's PIHKAL were actually first synthesized in the Nichols lab. His lab also first developed [125I]-(R)-DOI as a radioligand. He is the only one in the last 20 years who has done any research on the chemistry and pharmacology of LSD, and first reported that several LSD analogues, including ethlad, prolad, and allylad were more potent than LSD itself. Their human effects are described in TIHKAL. He also improved the synthesis of psilocybin so that it would be accessible for several recent clinical studies using this tryptamine. He is also 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 International Serotonin Club, 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 the world's top expert on the chemistry and pharmacology of psychedelics.
Dr. Nichols' other professional activities include teaching pharmacology in his area of expertise to medical students at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
He is also one of the world leaders in research on dopamine, and is the principal chemist studying the importance of dopamine D1 receptors in the brain. He co-founded DarPharma, Inc. to commercialize his dopamine compounds, which is now studying them in clinical trials in Parkinson's disease and in treating the cognitive and memory deficits of schizophrenia.
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