Birth year – death year

1951 –

Occupation

Neuropsychopharmacologist and academic

Major contributions to psychedelic space

  • Actively supports evidence-based drug policy reform in the United Kingdom
  • Researched psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression
  • Performed the first MRI of a human brain that was under the influence of LSD
  • Chairman of the nonprofit Drug Science
  • Serves on the scientific advisory board for the Beckley Foundation

Narrative profile, career highlights:

Dr. David Nutt is a neuropsychopharmacologist who studies the effects of drugs on the brain. Due to his pioneering research in drug pharmacology, Nutt’s work has been widely published and cited in scientific literature.

Nutt is also a drug policy reform advocate in the United Kingdom. In 2007, he published a paper that proposed drugs should be classified by the actual evidence of the harm they cause. This sentiment challenged the U.K.’s drug classification system and received significant press in the U.K. and the United States. Nutt was later removed from his position Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) in 2010. In response, Nutt founded Drug Science (formerly called the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs), a nonprofit which provides evidence-based information about drugs.

Nutt has contributed significantly to psychedelic research, including partnering with the Beckley Foundation to study the effects of psychedelics on blood flow in the brain. He is also a faculty member in the department of medicine of the Imperial College London, U.K.; the Edmond J. Safra chair in neuropsychopharmacology; and the director of the neuropsychopharmacology unit in the division of brain sciences.