David B. Repke BSc | |
|---|---|
| Other names | David B. Repke |
| Alma mater | Michigan Technological University (BSc; 1966–1970) |
| Occupation | Medicinal chemist |
| Years active | 1973–2010 [1] [2] |
| Employer(s) | Syntex, Roche |
| Known for | Work in the area of psychedelic tryptamines |
| Notable work | Anadenanthera: Visionary Plant of Ancient South America (2006) [3] |
| Website | www |
David Repke, or David B. Repke, is an American medicinal chemist who has done work in the area of psychedelic drugs. [4] [5] [6] [3] He and his colleagues are known to have been the first to synthesize and describe a number of notable psychedelic tryptamines, [6] [5] including 4-HO-MET, [5] [7] 4-HO-MPT, [7] 4-HO-DPT, [8] [5] [9] 4-HO-DBT, [9] 4-HO-DiPT, [10] [11] [9] MiPT, [12] [7] [13] 4-HO-MiPT, [5] [7] 5-MeO-MiPT, [4] [14] [13] 4-HO-McPeT, [7] and 4-HO-pyr-T, [9] among others. He is known to have collaborated with Alexander Shulgin and Dennis McKenna on scientific work. [14] [3] [13] [15] Repke has also published a book on the entheogenic use of Anadenanthera in South America that was coauthored with Constantino Manuel Torres. [3]
[Alexander Shulgin in Preface:] It was several years earlier that I had first met David Repke. At that time he was an organic chemist with a northern California pharmaceutical company, and I quickly appreciated that he was a master in the area of tryptamine chemistry. He was interested in the synthesis of plant alkaloids and their analogues, and this fit beautifully with my own curiosity about psychoactive compounds. Our interaction has led to our co-authoring of a couple of publications in the scientific literature. At that time, our mutual interests were focused on the N-alkylated analogues of the active ayahuasca component dimethyltryptamine and the four-substituted counterparts such as psilocin and psilocybin that are the major contributors to the activity of the magic mushrooms of the Psilocybe genus.
5-MeO-MiPT is a fully synthetic compound first created in 1985, the brainchild of pioneering medicinal chemists Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin and David B. Repke. Its synthesis was part of an effort to investigate how small changes to a drug's chemical structure could influence the effects it produces when consumed—a concept in drug discovery research known as the "structure-activity relationship." Shulgin and Repke published their report of 5-MeO-MiPT's synthesis and pharmacological effects in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, marking the first documented evidence of the drug's existence.
Repke synthesized several other psilocin homologues, including 4-hydroxy-N-methyl-N-ethyltryptamine (4-HO-MET), 4-hydroxy-N-methyl-N-isopropyltryptamine (4-HO-MIPT), 4-hydroxy-N,N-dipropyltryptamine (4-HO-DPT), and 4-hydroxy-N,N-diisopropyltryptamine (4-HO-DIPT).63,64
5-MeO-MiPT (5-Methoxy-N-methyl-N-isopropyltryptamine): substituted tryptamine, first synthesized by Repke et al. (1985). [...] 4-OH-DiPT (4-Hydroxy-diisopropyltryptamine): substituted tryptamine, first synthesized by Repke et al. (1977) and investigated in humans by A. Shulgin (Shulgin and Shulgin, 1997).
In 1977, David Repke first synthesized 4-HO-DiPT hydrochloride.1 Shulgin and Shulgin subsequently reported synthesizing 4-HO-DiPT hydrochloride in TIHKAL.2 Neither Repke nor the Shulgins isolated or characterized the freebase form of 4-HO-DiPT or any salts other than the hydrochloride.
4-HO-DiPT was first synthesized and characterized as the hydrochloride salt by David Repke in 1977. Its profound psychedelic effects were described by Alexander and Ann Shulgin in their book TiHKAL: "I truly doubt that there is another psychedelic drug, anywhere, that can match this one for speed, for intensity, for brevity, and sensitive to dose, at least one that is active orally."
The synthesis of N-methyl-N-isopropyltryptamine (MiPT) was reported in 1981 (Repke et al., 1981). In 1985, Repke and co-workers reported that of the compounds in the series of N,N-dialkyl-4-hydroxytryptamines, the N-methyl-N-isopropyl derivative (4-HO-MiPT) is the most potent based upon qualitative effects on humans (Repke et al., 1985).
Though you may never have heard of it, moxy is far from new. It was synthesized in 1985 in a lab in Lafayette, California, by medical chemists Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin and David B. Repke. Shulgin synthesized most of the world's psychedelic drugs and tested many of them on himself and his wife Ann, documenting their effects in books like "TiHKAL" ("Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved") and "PiHKAL" ("Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved").