Stroke Program Consultants
Algernon has engaged a number of global experts in the areas of stroke, and DMT research and have retained the following consultants:
DMT
Rick Strassman MD
Dr. Strassman is a native of Los Angeles, and obtained his undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences from Stanford University, and his medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. His book DMT: The Spirit Molecule (2001) has sold 250,000 copies, been translated into 12 languages, and is the basis of a successful independent documentary that he co-produced. He is currently Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the UNM School of Medicine. He trained in general psychiatry at UC Davis in Sacramento and took a clinical psychopharmacology research fellowship at UC San Diego. Joining the faculty at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine in 1984, his clinical research with melatonin discovered its first known function in humans.
Between 1990-1995 he performed the first new US clinical research with psychedelic drugs in a generation. His studies involved DMT, and to a lesser extent psilocybin, and received federal and private funding. From 1995-2008 he practiced general psychiatry in community mental health and the private sector. He has authored or co-authored nearly 50 peer-reviewed papers, has served as guest editor and reviewer for numerous scientific journals, and consulted to various government, non-profit, and for-profit entities.
David Nutt DM, FRCP, FRCPSYCH, FSB, FMEDSCI
Dr. Nutt is currently an Edmund J. Safra Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology and Head of the Centre for Neuropsychopharmacology in the Division of Brain Science, Department of Medicine, Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College London. He is also visiting professor at the Open University in the UK and Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
Dr. Nutt is also Chair of the charity DrugScience (formally the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD). He has been President of major national and international organisations: the British Neuroscience Association, the British Association for Psychopharmacology, the European Brain Council and the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology. In recognition of his research success he has been made a Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians, of Psychiatrists and of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He is also the UK Director of the European Certificate and Masters in Affective Disorders Courses and a member of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy. He has edited the Journal of Psychopharmacology for over twenty-five years and acts as the psychiatry drugs advisor to the British National Formulary. He has published over 500 original research papers, a similar number of reviews and books chapters, eight government reports on drugs and 31 books including one for the general public Drugs Without the Hot Air, which won the Transmission book prize in 2014.
He was the clinical scientific lead on the 2004/5 UK Government Foresight initiative “Brain science, addiction and drugs” that provided a 25-year vision for this area of science and public policy.
Stroke
Dennis Choi MD, PhD
Dr. Choi is Professor of Neurology at Stony Brook University, having previously chaired that department and served as Director of the Neurosciences Institute there. Other prior positions have included Director of the Brain Science Institute at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Vice President for Academic Health Affairs at Emory University, Executive Vice President for Neurosciences at Merck Research Labs, and Head of Neurology at Washington University Medical School. Dr. Choi received his M.D. from the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program, as well as a Ph.D. in pharmacology and neurology residency training at Harvard. A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the National Academy of Medicine, he has served previously as President of the Society for Neuroscience, Vice-President of the American Neurological Association, and chairman of the U.S./Canada Regional Committee of the International Brain Research Organization.
Dr. Choi has been a member of the Board on Life Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences; the Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration; and Councils for the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the National Institute on Aging, the Winter Conference for Brain Research, the International Society for Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, and the Neurotrauma Society; as well as the advisory boards of multiple companies and non-profit disease foundations. He was a founding co-editor-in-chief of the research journal, Neurobiology of Disease (Elsevier). He has been a pioneer in developing the field of neuroprotection, identifying mechanisms responsible for nervous system injury after acute insults and developing therapeutic countermeasures.