By Kellie Britch, College of Arts and Sciences
Chris Witowski, PhD and Jackie von Salm, PhD, are revolutionizing treatment options for mental health disorders by utilizing the therapeutic benefits of psychedelic substances without the hallucinogenic properties.
“At Psilera, we are a neuroplastogen company,” said Witowski, who co-founded Psilera with von Salm in 2019. “So really, what that means is we’re developing next-generation psychedelics and making small tweaks to known psychedelic molecules, but in doing so, reducing side effects so that we can create take-home molecules that don’t require clinical supervision or a psychedelic experience.
“We are really at the early stages of a total transformation in how we treat, and diagnose, people with mental health problems.”
It is estimated that about one in five people live with a mental health disorder, but the therapeutic options for these patients haven’t really changed in the last 40 years. Psilera’s goal is to create better treatment options that are not only more effective, but also more accessible.
“Even going back decades, the traditional antidepressants are ‘neuroplastogens,’” Witowski said. “They just take a little bit longer, usually four to six weeks, for the benefits to kick in. Psychedelics, on the other hand, have a very rapid antidepressant effect within 24 hours.”
Psilera will enter their lead drug candidate, PSIL-006, into human trials in the next 12 months.
The benefits aren’t just rapid, according to Witowski, they’re durable.
“With psychedelics, you can have one dose and have lasting benefits for months. This is very disruptive to traditional dosing regimens."
We last checked in with von Salm and Witowski two years ago. Since then, their research has advanced incredibly fast, leading them to enter their lead drug candidate, PSIL-006, into human trials in the next 12 months. Psilera also received approval to initiate phase 2 of their NIH grant for alcohol use disorder.
"We're grateful for the continued support from the NIH to further investigate the potential for non-hallucinogenic psilocybin derivatives to treat addiction disorders," von Salm said in a press release. "Along with our collaborator, Dr. Danielle Gulick at the University of South Florida, we continue to see promising results in reducing alcohol consumption in vivo."
They have certainly come a long way since they first met while working with Professor Bill Baker in 2011.
“About 70% of all medicines start out as a natural discovery,” Witowski, who graduated from USF with a doctorate in chemistry in 2015, said. “The natural world really does provide a great resource to find and develop new medicines. So for me, that was the most exciting part of the work that we did in Bill Baker’s lab.”
Working with Baker, whose area of focus is organic and medicinal chemistry, during her undergraduate is what convinced von Salm to pursue her graduate degree from USF as well.
“When I started my undergraduate research at USF, my main draw to it was that natural products chemistry had the overlap between the natural medicine side,” said von Salm, who graduated from USF with her doctorate in chemistry in 2016. “So, when I was first looking for different areas to do research in, Bill Baker's lab was kind of the obvious choice.
On Oct. 8, 2026, Psilera announced that they had received approval to initiate phase 2 of their NIH grant for alcohol use disorder.
"As soon as I went to Antarctica to do research with him at Palmer Station and got to do research on chemical ecology and drug discovery there, I was sold and didn't want to go anywhere else.”Aside from bringing von Salm and Witowski together, USF has provided connections to some of Psilera’s key collaborators, employees and support over the years. The company employs two USF alumni from the Department of Chemistry, Jeanine Yacoub, PhD and Elena Bray, PhD, and the incubator program at USF Connect is what, in many ways, has made Psilera’s research financially possible.
“I think we started at USF Connect in 2020, maybe around mid-year, and by the end of the year we were actively working in the lab,” Witowski said. “That just wouldn't have been possible in any other way, and it has been incredible for us as a company.
“We certainly wouldn't be where we are today without USF, and I'll continue to say that. I think we're just getting started.”
Learn more about Psilera’s work.