Hello all. First and for most, i am interested in the opinions of those who have degrees in Chemistry or Biology, or are educators at the college/university level in a science.

I am pursuing a degree in Chemistry and am getting into assistant-ships in organic and biochemistry. Much of this work will be synthesizing proteins and lysing cells to extract desired proteins and other molecules for study.

I feel the knowledge i have gained through extractions, research in these methods and the like gained through other entheogenic encounters is quite relevant in some cases to the work i am trying to start on.

Some professors would prefer it if i had familiarity with organic chemistry labs before i start. I am trying to figure out if i should bring up this experience to them, and if so, then how?

I don't want to ruin my credibility as a trustworthy and responsible person, but i don't want to lose out on some awesome opportunities because they don't know i am competent enough to begin work.

So i humbly ask my fellow nexians who have been in this place or have been in the professor's shoes, for your advice. I feel there could be a way to bring up my experience without mentioning illegal activities, but i am really quite lost on how or if i should even.

My gut says keep quite, but my brain says to find a legit way to bring this experience to light. So i ask you chemists and professors, what would you do, did do, or shouldn't have done?

A million star sized thanks to all who help

I personally wouldn't talk about it

I am not a chemist, but all of the extraction and purification procedures we do here can easily be found on youtube in a totally legal context.

The chemistry doesn't have to be illegal. You've read up on it and practiced on *insert inert plant here* because you are ambitious and want to be ready, right?

Yea, but its pretty difficult for me to put together a legal and non-lab setting context for that knowledge. A PhD professor in Chemistry will probably be able to easily tell if there's any holes in my story, all it takes is one well-placed question from those Chemasters and i could be effed, in multiple ways

A concur with House's advice and take it a step further.

Phlux's Piperine Tek is completely legal

As is q21q21's Curcumin Tek

Syrian Rue is also legal in many parts of the world. The Tao of Rue goes over quite a few different lab procedures with more listed in the bottom reference links.

All of these extracts have proven medicinal benefits so there's nothing shady about it.

Perform those extractions and any others you can find in the "Other psychoactives" or "Advanced Chem" forums. That way there won't be any holes in your story and you can provide examples of your work/results.

I am a physicist and so my viewpoint is perhaps not relevant. I would not mention it. Knowing how to do DMT extractions does not legitimately count as Chemistry experience, and an employer would not want to know about it. From their perspective, it only makes it more likely that you will use their equipment for illegal activities, which they cannot allow of course.

I once took the magnetron out of a microwave and tried to make a waveguide for it so that I could use it to power a homemade furnace (it didn't work). That doesn't mean I have prior experience in experimental physics. It was just kid's stuff compared to what I'm doing now, and likewise your technical chemistry skills will reach a level that you never thought possible. When you're at that level, it will be more obvious that amateur chemistry endeavors don't count for much in the professional world.

No, entheogenic extractions aren't the type of thing professors want to hear. If they deal with proteins, why should they care about illegal drugs?


Time to dig into legal plant extractions. Perform one or two and document them throughly. You can apply your knowledge there and then present the reports to your professors. This way you can show your skills without embarrassing you and your professor with illegal activities. This one could match your kitchen chemistry skills without the entheogenic or illegal context: https://www.google.com/patents/US20020028802

Btw, if your future career deals with proteins, have a look at: http://fold.it
It's computational protein chemistry, not lab chemistry, but you learn a great deal about proteins and you find a lot of protein chemists of all skills in the chat who can give you further advice on your career.

Edit: This doesn't mean chemistry scholars aren't interested in psychoactive substances. Probe them carefully and you'll be surprised. But don't rush things, first prove your integrity.

Having been in this situation myself during college, I would say dont mention your experience in anything that is not culturally accepted and legal.

However, there is nothing to stop you from proclaiming your interest/experience in acid/base extraction chemistry using legal things like caffeine from green tea, kavalacetones from kava, harmalas, or isolating other plant alkaloids so long as you actually can back that up and know what you are talking about. And heck if you have synthesized legitimate things in your spare time even better. Professors love to hear about things students work on in their free time, and some of them can actually be pretty open minded if you get to know them.

As other have said, definitely avoid mentioning where you got the chem/lab skills that you have atm if these have involved illegitimate or borderline legitimate purposes.

The most legitimate extractions I have come across is from a registered, practicing herbalist friend of mine who was preparing alcoholic tinctures of various plants for use on his patients. Depending on the plant, the suspected active principle within the plant, and the downstream intended applications, his guidelines would call for the tincture be prepared using varying amounts of alcohol and or other solvents (most usually vegetable oils).

Example given, he would prepare a licorice tincture for oral administration with 10% alcohol provided that the therapeutic principles in licorice are fairly water-soluble, but he'd use 90% alcohol for St. John's wort using analogous logic. But he'd use olive oil to extract St. John's wort if the intention was to make a skin ointment. All in all, there is some moderate chemical knowledge involved in the herbal practice. Maybe you have a similarly fascinating friend who was willing explain you his workings in a bit more detail and, via proxy, you got to know something about chemistry.


If that is what you intend to do, then I doubt if you really need to demonstrate any strong organic chemistry knowledge. Plus, extractions here in the nexus border, but have not much to do with organic chemistry. You'd need more of molecular biology knowledge which does not come from extracting in your kitchen. You'd also need some knowledge on column chromatography (affinity chromatography and/or ion-exchange chromatography depending on the protein expressed and mode of purification), and dialysis, none of which are "taught" in kitchen chemistry. You will need to know about solubility/saturation (e.g. the colder or the most concentrated a solution is the easier the solutes will crash out) but you know this from high school. You will also need to know about hydrophobic and hydrophilic stuff, but this too you remember from high school.

Overall, you are very OK and maybe saving yourself some trouble if you present yourself as an individual who has good, solid knowledge of highschool chemistry.

thank you so much everyone who is helping! I think the advice so far will be really beneficial and it looks like i have some summer projects to dabble in now I really appreciate everyone's input (even hixidom).

Special thanks to Melcat, Ufostrahlen, and Infundibulum for the leads and suggestions!

I think i will try some tinctures, and see what other things i can do that are quite legal. I won't mention anything about my experience until i've completed these "experiments" with good documentation and notes. I will probably even post the reports to the nexus first, for some peer review on my methods, results and interpretations.

I feel i could have a strong career in chemistry and want to start ASAP, but want to make sure i can show strong skills, or at least a good potential for those skills.

Also i am currently trying to come up with a good idea for undergraduate research that i might be able conduct and get a grant for this fall or next spring. Currently i'm still searching for topics that need more research, but may be over looked by far more advanced chemists for more important problems. I have just been reading chemistry articles and seeing if any ideas pop into my head, with no luck so far, but i think that could change during the course of my summer projects.

Thanks again to all who have contributed and will. it is truly much appreciated

EDIT: Also my current goal is to obtain a PhD in Neurochemistry, so any advice from accomplished scholars on this pursuit is also much appreciated. I believe that conciousness is just the result of the brain processing signals, and seek to clarify those processes and quantify them as much as possible in life.