About
The Mission of PPA
Our mission is to reduce pain and improve health with psychedelic medicines. The Psychedelics & Pain Association (PPA) works to advance research, understanding, awareness and access to psychedelic medicines for the treatment of chronic pain, including headache disorders, autoimmune diseases, inflammatory conditions, mitochondrial dysregulation, spinal cord damage and traumatic brain injuries. PPA is a collaboration between Psychedelics Today, REMAP Therapeutics, and Clusterbusters, and it has received generous seed funding from The RiverStyx Foundation. All of the leaders of PPA are either directly or indirectly impacted by chronic pain.
Why PPA?
There is a robust ecosystem of funding, research and utilization support for psychedelics for the treatment of mental health. We need to start building the same support structures for psychedelics and the improved management of pain.
We are entering a new era of pain management — psychedelic medicines have the potential to offer relief across many pain categories.
Kevin Lenaburg
Executive Director, Psychedelics & Pain Association
For more than a dozen years, Kevin has worked to support people living with pain and advance policies that reduce suffering. He has led coalitions focused on responsible pain management and improving care for people with migraine and other headache diseases. Kevin’s experiences include driving public policy change, organizing stakeholder summits, engaging in regulatory issues, and supporting relationships with a diverse range of organizations. He concurrently serves as the Policy Director for Clusterbusters, a nonprofit that advocates for people with cluster headache, the most painful condition known to medicine. Kevin has seen the transformative power of psychedelic medicines to heal the people he loves, and he is passionate about advancing research and responsibly expanding access to new tools that can effectively help to manage pain.
Joe Moore
Co-Founder of Psychedelics Today
Joe Moore co-founded Psychedelics Today in 2016 with Kyle Buller. As CEO, Joe has created one of the world’s best-known psychedelic podcasts, blogs, and training platforms. Joe combines twenty years of avid research and training in psychedelics with twenty years of experience in software and multinational project management. Joe is an expert in transpersonal breathwork and a much sought-after international voice on the intersecting subjects of psychedelic medicine and healing, breathwork, drug policy, medical innovation, justice, and environmentalism.
After suffering from chronic pain for over 15 years, he finally found relief through the personal use of psychedelics, dancing, music and friends. Inspired by the incredible stories of others who resolved their pain with psychedelics, he developed close relationships with Cluster Busters and REMAP Therapeutics, eventually becoming a founding board member of the Psychedelics and Pain Association.
Court Wing
Cofounder
A former chronic pain sufferer, Court Wing is the founder and CEO of REMAP Therapeutics and a co-founder of the Psychedelics & Pain Association. REMAP Therapeutics is devoted to the development of formal psychedelic rehabilitation sessions and cohesive best practices for many treatment-resistant chronic pain conditions. Court is an accomplished performance and pain professional with over 14 years of formal Ki-Aikido study and 30 years of experience in maximizing the athletic performance of his clients, helping countless individuals overcome injury to return to competition and daily life. He is a certified Z-Health Master Trainer and was co-founder of CrossFit NYC.
In 2020, Court was a study participant in NYU’s clinical trial of Psilocybin for Major Depressive Disorder. By the end of his “dosing” day in the trial, he was in full remission, no longer qualifying for the diagnosis of depression. More astounding were the lateral benefits; he was also no longer suffering from low-to-moderate chronic pain and related neurological issues from previous injuries. Court’s commitment to further investigate the healing potential of psychedelics stems from his direct experience as a participant in this psilocybin trial. With his extensive experience in applied neurophysiology for pain & performance, he immediately realized psychedelics were going to completely change the way we are able to treat chronic pain.
Joel Castellanos, MD
Advisor
Joel Castellanos, MD, is a board-certified physical medicine and rehabilitation and pain medicine physician, and serves as medical director of Inpatient Rehabilitation at UCSD’s Center for Psychedelic Research. Dr. Castellanos’ prime focus is improving function using an individualized approach. He is particularly interested in neuromodulation at various levels including spinal cord stimulation and peripheral nerve stimulation, interventional spine procedures, radiofrequency neurotomy, ultrasound-guided and fluoroscopically-guided procedures, and regenerative medicine such as platelet-rich plasma, stem cells, and Tenex (minimally invasive technology for treatment of chronic pain). He has specific clinical interests in pelvic pain, complex regional pain syndrome, phantom limb pain, and post-spinal cord injury pain syndromes. His research interests include altering nutrition as a means of treating chronic pain, neuromodulation for chronic painful conditions as well as the potential use of psychedelics for these conditions. An associate professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at UC San Diego School of Medicine, Dr. Castellanos instructs pain medicine fellows, as well as medical students, residents in their pain rotations. Dr. Castellanos completed his fellowship in pain medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine. He completed residency training in physical medicine and rehabilitation at University of Michigan Medical School, where he also completed a two-year program in healthcare administration. Dr. Castellanos earned his medical degree from University of Toledo College of Medicine in Ohio. He is board certified in physical medicine and rehabilitation and pain medicine.
Our Team
Court Wing
Cofounder
Joe Moore
Cofounder
Joel Castellanos, MD
Advisor