So I'm a grad student that's very interested in pharmacology, but I'm officially in a department that is unrelated to pharmacology/biochemistry, etc...

Recently, I've been really curious to explore the pharmacokinetics of tetrahydroharmine (THH), a remarkable carboline found in banistreiopsis caapi, since the human pharmacokinetics has never been studied.

I have a decent amount of pure THH, so i could start the experiment any time. But... here's the catch: To do the pharmacokinetic studies I would need to have access to various expensive chromatography apparatuses, such as HPLC, as well as GCMS to verify the purity of my THH.

I'm playing with the idea of just writing to the biology or chem department and giving them my research proposal and to ask if i can use their machines (also, I would of-course be willing to pay for the use of their equipment) .

On the other hand, I'm a bit hesitant about asking them. Will they write me off as some crazy druggy whose out of his mind and maybe even a criminal (THH is legal where i live though)? Is this just overall a bad idea or is there a chance that I will find someone who will be sympathetic?

Also, do you have any advice for going about asking or what kind of people I should contact?

P.S. Since I don't have first-hand experience using chromatography machines, I would also need to find someone willing to show me how to do it or even run the samples for me.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Maybe get the technical experience first? Although, this project seems like as good a way to get the technical experience on-the-fly. You get the whole gamut of method development, including optimisation of urine extractions.

Given that the harmala alkaloids show promise as antivirals, perhaps you can spin it into a context of current events in order to present the project in as favourable a light as possible?

There are at least a couple of senior members here who can advise you on chromatography instrumentation. Benzyme and Endlessness spring to mind.

If you decide to conduct your research privately, it should be possible to send your (worked-up) samples away for analysis.

Thanks for the advice!

Hi AlbertChemist,

Point you to this sticky Free lab test for your (garden or local) plants !!! Interested??

I don't know if your case is applicable. Check it out.

I came across a very interesting paper, which is related to this topic although they were using a different substances.
Still, I think their method could certainly be adapted to what I'm hoping to do.

Title: Method validation and preliminary pharmacokinetic studies on the new designer stimulant 3‐fluorophenmetrazine (3‐FPM)

Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/dta.2577

So I think this paper is very interesting on several grounds. While the substance they investigate has noting to do with beta-carbolines, it's still still something that might interest this community (3-FPM). More importantly though, this paper is a wonderful example of self-experimentation. The test subject is the lead author and the only person to ingest the substance.
Inmho it's sad how self-experimentation has fallen out of favour, since it used to be quite commonplace. In fact, I see it as the moral obligation of the pharmacological researcher to test any new substances on himself first before he can even consider giving it to other people and test subjects.

If the project from the earlier post comes to fruition, I will likely follow the methodology in this paper.

Wow! That looks like a very generous offer by endlessness! Thanks for sharing this!