Ibogaine: The Molecule, The Plant, and The Promise

Episode 11 - From Root to Release

Episode 11 steps outside the sterile pharmaceutical framework to examine Tabernanthe iboga and Voacanga africana as dynamic, living biological systems within equatorial W

Episode 10: Into the Clinic - Indications, Trials Past, Present & Future

The series capstone maps the full clinical landscape. The hosts review primary and secondary indications — opioid use disorder (the flagship), other substance use disorde

Episode 9: Engineering Around the Problem - 18-MC, Tabernanthalog & Next-Generation Analogs

Episode 9 tells the medicinal-chemistry redemption arc: how chemists tried to retain ibogaines therapeutic core while deleting cardiotoxicity and the multi-hour hallucino

Episode 8: The Central Danger - Cardiotoxicity, hERG & QT Prolongation

Episode 8 is the series safety cornerstone. Cardiotoxicity is introduced as the single biggest barrier to ibogaine becoming an approved medicine. The mechanism is explain

Episode 7: Polypharmacology - How Ibogaine Actually Works (and Noribogaine)

This episode delivers the definitive mechanistic tour: ibogaine is a textbook "dirty drug" acting across many targets. The hosts enumerate its bindings — NMDA antagonism,

Episode 6 · Building the Cage - Total Synthesis Semi-Synthesis

Episode 6 is a synthesis seminar: it explains the iboga skeleton as a classic synthetic challenge and surveys landmark and modern approaches. Buechis 1966 total synthesis

Episode 5 · Getting the Molecule Out - Extraction, Isolation, Purification & Impurity Profiling

This episode bridges chemistry and quality by explaining how ibogaine is separated from plant material and purified to an API specification. Acid-base alkaloid partitioni

Episode 4 · From Field to Feedstock - Cultivation, Sourcing & Sustainability

Episode 4 follows raw material from field to feedstock, examining the agronomy of both source species and why cultivating iboga is genuinely difficult. The discussion cov

Episode 3 · Two Roads to Ibogaine - Tabernanthe iboga vs. Voacanga africana

This episode reveals why the plant everyone talks about is not the one industry actually uses. The discussion contrasts T. iboga — with its low yield, slow growth, and co

Episode 2: The Plant & Its Chemistry — Botany & Pharmacognosy of Iboga

The second episode grounds the listener in botanical and chemical fundamentals. It covers Tabernanthe iboga taxonomy, morphology, and why the root bark concentrates alkal

Episode 1 · Origins — From Bwiti Ritual to Addiction Medicine

This episode establishes the series through a narrative arc of discovery and suppression. Beginning with the Bwiti spiritual tradition in Gabon and the cultural significa