Stephen Szára

Stephen Szára (born 1923) is a Hungarian chemist and psychiatrist who has made major contributions in the field of pharmacology.

Szára was the first to scientifically study the psychotropic effects of N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), performing research with volunteers in the mid-1950s.[1] Szára had turned his attention to DMT after his order for LSD from the Swiss company Sandoz Laboratories was rejected on the grounds that the powerful psychotropic could be dangerous in the hands of a communist country.

Shortly after the Hungarian Revolution, Szára moved to the United States where he eventually became Chief of the Biomedical Branch of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse. In the U.S., he worked with Julius Axelrod and others on the metabolism of DMT and related compounds in healthy and schizophrenic volunteers. Among other achievements, Szára and his colleagues characterized the biochemistry of the first three psychedelic cogeners of tryptamine: dimethyl-, diethyl-, and dipropyl-tryptamine (DMT, DET, and DPT), describing their pharmacokinetics and effects.

Szára's research explored both the possibility that some tryptamines (DMT, in particular) might contribute to psychosis by forming in the brain as well as the possibility that some psychedelics might be useful in psychotherapy.[2] In recent years, Szára has argued that psychedelic drugs should be studied in a heuristic manner and that learning the mechanisms by which they affect the brain may "serve as keys to unlock the mysteries of the brain/mind relationship".[3]

Szára is an Emeritus Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and Collegium Internationale Neuro-Psychopharmacologicum, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Heffter Research Institute. He was elected Honorary Member of the Hungarian Association of Psychopharmacology in 2007. He is also recipient of the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration Administrator's Meritorious Achievement Award and the Kovats Medal of Freedom from the American Hungarian Federation (2005).[4][5]

References

  1. ↑ Szara (1956). "Dimethyltryptamin: its metabolism in man; the relation to its psychotic effect to the serotonin metabolism". Experientia 12 (11): 441–2. doi:10.1007/BF02157378. PMID 13384414.
  2. ↑ Faillace (1967). "Clinical evaluation of some hallucinogenic tryptamine derivatives". The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 145 (4): 306–13. doi:10.1097/00005053-196710000-00005. PMID 6076017. |first2= missing |last2= in Authors list (help); |first3= missing |last3= in Authors list (help)
  3. ↑ Szára (1994). "Are hallucinogens psychoheuristic?". NIDA research monograph 146: 33–51. PMID 8742793.
  4. ↑ Simon, Andrew L (1998). Made in Hungary: Hungarian Contributions to Universal Culture. Safety Harbor, FL: Simon Publishing. pp. 344–345. ISBN 978-0-9665734-2-8. OCLC 41712910.
  5. ↑ Szára (2007). "DMT at fifty". Neuropsychopharmacologia Hungarica 9 (4): 201–5. PMID 18510265.


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