Who we are
Joseph Beckett
Joseph is a synthetic chemist whose primary focus is the discovery of amino acid-derived small-molecule neurotherapeutics. During his PhD work, Joseph advanced the photochemistry of tryptophan and tryptamines by focusing on the use of non-typical leaving groups derived from amino acids. He developed and patented (with UC-Davis) a well-behaved electrophilically controlled radical cyclization that produces the previously inaccessible azocinoindole framework. He went on to show that the azocinoindole class contains pharmacologically interesting activity and has members that fully activate the receptor responsible for the effects of psychedelics, but which do not produce hallucinations in mouse models. He spends most of his time in the lab, as it is his favorite place to be and has never-ending ideas for drug targets, which he believes will be more successful than computer-generated targets since these do not take into account chemical reactivity, stability, and toxicity.
Lena Svanholm
Lena has her bachelor’s degree in German with a minor in chemistry, as well as a Master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from UC Davis. She has also completed the coursework for a PhD in Organic Chemistry. While pursuing her education, Lena played college basketball at Colorado State University and at UC Davis. She is currently tutoring chemistry in Denmark, where she is from, and playing professional basketball in Sweden.
Trey Brasher
Trey Brasher is a pharmacologist and medicinal chemist with a prevailing passion for serotonergic drug development. He received his undergraduate degree in pharmacology from Stockton University. Trey has been working in the psychedelic and psychedelic inspired pharmaceutical space since 2020. He has worked for several nonprofits including Chacruna, MAPS, and Unlimited Science where he helped conducted the largest naturalistic psilocybin study in history in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University. Prior to entering the space, he worked at Rutgers University Plant Pathology Lab working on novel antifungal formulations. He is currently focused on Azocino’s R&D into serotonin modulating anti-Parkinson‘s drugs. Trey is also a prolific artist, avid outdoorsman, and dedicated yogi and meditator. He is from Denver, Colorado.
What we do
We Use Discovery Chemistry to Discover New Drugs
We believe that using novel methods to access unexplored chemical landscapes will be more prolific than the current approach to drug discovery which uses process chemistry routes to creating large libraries of flat molecules in search of “a hit”. At azocino we have turned the light on while we work. We believe that humans making informed decisions about a drug target is more preferable than randomly generating molecules and until AI learns valence bond theory, we as chemists and pharmacologists are better equipped than a computer to design and optimize safe and effective therapeutics.
How we do it
At Azocino, Inc. we focus on the use amino acids as molecular building blocks. Our hypothesis is that because the body is equipped to deal with amino acids we will increase out chances of success by using these cheap and easy to deal with reagents. Our approach reduces hazardous waste generation and allows us to use cheap solvents such as water and alcohols. The mainstay of our approach is photochemistry and this gives us access to unexplored and fruitful molecular landscapes where new and interesting activity is most likely to be found.
