Working with psychedelics: Bex Harding
“I want to change the way psychedelics are seen in the public eye and bring psychedelics-assisted therapies to the patients that need them most.”
Rebecca “Bex” Harding recently joined Clerkenwell Health as Clinical Research Scientist to follow her passion in enhancing the understanding of psychedelic treatments and ultimately increasing access. We love her determination in finding the best solutions while considering their wider implications, and she appreciates that Clerkenwell Health is not afraid to tackle indications that have been previously considered challenging.
“The diversity of projects and the creativity in making them happen - instead of focusing on one drug, I can focus on improving the field.”
Bex has experience working with some of the first groups to undertake psychedelic research in the UK. She worked with psilocybin using neuroimaging techniques to understand the brain mechanisms underlying its effects.
Bex studied Translational Neuroscience at Imperial College London, where she was a member of the Centre for Psychedelic Research. She completed her thesis on the effects of psilocybin compared to SSRIs for the treatment of Major Depressive Disorder on music processing. She also worked alongside Drug Science on a number of projects including the Medical Psychedelics Working Group.
Bex’s experience with neuroimaging studies led her to realise the limitations in bridging the gap between neuroscience and psychiatry. She wants to see innovative methods developed to understand how psychedelics might lead to plasticity in the brain, which she thinks is the link between the neural mechanisms these drugs work on and the therapeutic benefits they induce.
“Understanding the neural mechanisms of psychedelics will open the doors to identifying the right indications these drugs can be useful for.”
Bex is already helping our clients with their drug development processes. She is maintaining a thorough knowledge of all recent literature to aid identification of indications and innovation in study design.
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About Clerkenwell Health
Clerkenwell Health is a consultancy CRO specialising in bespoke solutions for the development of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies.
The team brings together decades of international regulatory affairs, clinical development strategy, clinical operations, and market access expertise. They support clients by identifying suitable indications, engaging regulators, designing clinically sound and scientifically robust study protocols, putting together and running safety monitoring boards, and submitting scientific grant applications. www.clerkenwellhealth.com