[Traumatic Acid]

Hi all
I'm currently a second year Bachelor of Science student majoring in Chemistry and minoring in Biochemistry.
Later on in life I'd really love to study medical chemistry and psychopharmacology (Alexander Shulgin is my inspirer).
Pretty much my area of interest is psychoactive substances and how they can be used medically, therapeutically, and safely on the streets when they inevitably make it there.
I am also incredibly interested in ethnobotany and phytochemistry. Nature has conveniently provided us with incomprehensibly large number of alkaloids and other bioactives, all of which have a potential use.

Ultimately I want to end up researching bioactive phytochemicals, how they work and how they can be used to our advantage. I'd also love to design drugs and even expand on Alexander and Ann Shulgin's work. Phenethylamines have always been very fascinating to me and they seem to have such a huge potential in psychopharmacotherapy. As do many other psychedelic compounds.

Anyway, any degrees that you've heard of come to mind? . Probably not. I'm aware that all of this will take several PHDs. Finding a uni which teaches the pharmacology of phytochemicals is probably my next move after medical biochemistry. Any ideas?

Cheers,
Have a great day

[wildfyr]

Well pharmacology seems pretty obvious. I think if you get into the next level a field you will realize how difficult it is to specialize in anything but one tiny little corner of a given field. Being a polymath even in just "psychoactive biochemistry" in this day and age requires a reading speed and retention that is not common. So it's one thing to say I want to specialize in "bioactive phytochemicals" but really, you may be able to specialize in one class of such phytochemicals. And specializing in their human pharmacology or their synthesis are two very different things.

Just FYI this forum is not a place where discussion of psychoactives is looked on especially kindly. Most chemists are not very interested in it, and a lot of riff-raff comes around here trying to "trick" us (lol) into helping them make them.

[Traumatic Acid]

Thanks for your reply.
Yeah I thought it would be a bit of a stretch.
 
Well I can see lots of uni debt in my future as I'd rather know a little about a lot of things than a lot about one specific thing.

I see, I don't mean to spark controversy. Hopefully something I can contribute to changing in the future.
Cheers