Scientists have engineered tobacco plants to function as living factories for multiple psychedelic compounds.
Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel successfully modified Nicotiana benthamiana, a close relative of tobacco widely used in plant biotechnology, to produce five powerful tryptamine psychedelics. These compounds are naturally found in “magic mushrooms,” certain plants, and the secretions of a toad species.
The breakthrough could pave the way for more sustainable and scalable production of psychedelic medicines, which are currently under intense investigation for treating depression, anxiety, PTSD, and addiction.
To achieve this, the team introduced nine genes from different organisms (fungi, plants, and animals) into the tobacco plants using a transient expression technique called agroinfiltration. This method temporarily delivers the genes without permanently altering the plant’s genome, allowing the plants to produce the compounds for a limited time.
The modified plants synthesized psilocybin and its active form psilocin (from mushrooms), as well as DMT, bufotenin, and 5-MeO-DMT (the potent psychedelic from the Colorado River toad). Some plants were even engineered to produce all five compounds simultaneously.
This plant-based approach offers a promising alternative to harvesting psychedelics from wild or cultivated natural sources, many of which face increasing pressure from habitat loss, overharvesting, and rising research demand. Using common agricultural plants as biological production systems could reduce costs and environmental impact.
While the yields in this proof-of-concept study were relatively modest, the work demonstrates the feasibility of producing complex psychoactive molecules in greenhouse-grown crops. It builds on decades of research using plants to manufacture pharmaceuticals and opens new possibilities for future psychedelic therapies.
[Berman P, et al. Complete biosynthesis of psychedelic tryptamines from three kingdoms in plants. Science Advances. 2026;12(14):eaeb3034. doi:10.1126/sciadv.aeb3034]
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GOOGLE $GOOGL JUST UPDATED ITS STOCK PORTFOLIO
This is everything Google owned as of the end of Q2
SpaceX $SPCX: 551,189,500 shares
Planet Labs $PL: 35,248,893 shares
AST SpaceMobile $ASTS: 8,943,486 shares
CME Group $CME: 3,484,020 shares
ARM Holdings $ARM: 1,960,784 shares
Revolution Medicines $RVMD: 2,946,619 shares
Freshworks $FRSH: 16,206,643 shares
Parabilis Medicines $PRBX: 4,919,498 shares
Tempus AI $TEM: 1,551,102 shares
GitLab $GTLB: 2,724,712 shares
UiPath $PATH: 7,034,337 shares
Ethos Technologies: 3,622,604 shares
Prime Medicine $PRME: 16,562,498 shares
Fervo Energy: 1,760,732 shares
PayPay Corp: 3,125,000 shares
Maze Therapeutics $MAZE: 1,388,583 shares
Relay Therapeutics $RLAY: 1,410,029 shares
BridgeBio Oncology Therapeutics $BBOT: 2,823,126 shares
Oscar Health $OSCR: 481,988 shares
Beam Therapeutics $BEAM: 321,604 shares
Vera Therapeutics $VERA: 241,264 shares
Sana Biotechnology $SANA: 2,812,500 shares
Monte Rosa Therapeutics $MRSN: 372,474 shares
Lyell Immunopharma $LYEL: 293,256 shares
Figma $FIG: 215,582 shares
Spero Therapeutics $SPRO: 889,979 shares
Hyperfine $HYPR: 898,720 shares
Autolus Therapeutics $AUTL: 698,262 shares
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BREAKING: Redwire's SpaceMD has announced its first commercial mission aboard SpaceX's Starfall spacecraft.
The mission aims to accelerate pharmaceutical development and microgravity manufacturing in space.
• Launch planned for 2028.
• SpaceMD will fly 32 PIL-BOXes—the largest dedicated commercial microgravity research mission ever flown.
• The mission will support pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and other in-space manufacturing research.
"Space-based pharmaceutical development is reaching an inflection point," said SpaceMD CEO John Vellinger, highlighting the combination of Redwire's flight-proven microgravity payloads with SpaceX's transportation capabilities to expand research capacity and accelerate the development of life-changing therapies.
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Emmy-nominated video journalist Cleo Abram wants to be the antidote to the looming sense of doom-and-gloom with tech. With her popular YouTube series, ‘Huge If True,’ Abram, 33, breaks down topics like AI, space, and biotechnology with a shot of optimism.
At a celebration in New York City to honor the TIME100 Creators, she spoke about misconceptions behind going independent — and praised her fellow creators as “coworkers.”
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President Biden's Preemptive Pardon of Fauci
Beginning of pardon period precisely coincides with NIH review of Ralph Baric and Peter Daszak's proposal for NIH grant “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence” by John Leake
@johnsearsleake @McCulloughFund
The documentary evidence is overwhelming that Anthony Fauci:
-Knew that Daszak, Baric, et al. were conducting GoF research with their colleagues at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (a Chinese biosecurity lab connected with the Chinese military).
-Knew that Baric et al. were creating SARS coronavirus variants capable of infecting and causing pathogenesis in humans.
-Knew that the NIH continued to fund (and therefore to endorse) the research of Baric et al. even after the federal pause on GoF in October 2014.
-Knew that Moderna patented the genetic sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 furin cleavage site in 2016.
-Knew that his own NIAID began collaborating with Moderna in 2016 to develop an mRNA vaccine against coronaviruses.
-NIAID Collaboration with ModernaPrior to the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists at NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center and the biotechnology company Moderna had collaborated for four years on mRNA vaccines for other emerging infectious diseases.
-Knew (documented in his private email correspondence with eminent virologists in February 2020) that the genome SARS-CoV-2 displayed clear features of lab manipulation.
-Fraudulently concealed that SARS-CoV-2 was produced in a lab by directing the publication of The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2, authored by the same virologists who had just told him in private that the virus appeared to have come from a lab.
All the above is clear documentary evidence that Anthony Fauci was a leading conspirator in perpetrating a massive crime against humanity, fraudulently concealing it, suppressing early treatment for it, and promoting the dangerous, experimental mRNA vaccine that NIAID (of which he was the director) developed with Moderna. The preemptive pardon must be overturned.
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