Delix Therapeutics

Abstract

The hallucinogenic anesthetic ketamine was all the rage in psychiatry research when David E. Olson was a postdoctoral researcher at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in the early 2010s. Though the drug was tightly regulated, scientists recognized its potential for transforming the treatment of cognitive and behavioral disorders by repairing the brain’s neural circuitry. During meetings, “all of the psychiatrists from Massachusetts General and McLean Hospital would come in and rave about ketamine,” Olson says. But the research community was realistic about ketamine gaining traction as an everyday prescription drug. Far from being a miracle molecule, ketamine could cause side effects such as unconsciousness, high blood pressure, and organ damage among frequent users. So when Olson started his own lab at the University of California, Davis, in 2015, his long-term goal was to “identify a better version of ketamine,” he says. Olson also aimed to use chemical modification