He fungi kingdom, the one that historically was observed with a certain contempt and that never generated the same charm as the animal or vegetable, today it is presented as the answer to great problems of humanity. Scientists know this and, for more than a decade, its medical properties have been investigated all over the world and technological developments have been made that aim to collaborate on issues as complex as pollution. Nature admirers also know it, who began to promote home cultivation and share secrets on specialized accounts on social networks. And, how could it be otherwise, the big mainstream production companies also know it, who picked up on this recent curiosity to launch blockbuster documentaries and fiction. Although there is still time to know if these organisms will save the planet, there is no doubt about something: the time has come for the fungus.
“The last of us”, one of HBO’s latest big hits, presents an apocalyptic world in which humans are infected by a fungus that turns them into a kind of zombie. The Netflix Documentaryfantastic mushrooms” talks about its vital importance for the planet and describes experiments that demonstrate its ability, for example, to remove oil waste. In “how to change your mind”, the writer Michael Pollan goes through the history of psychedelic drugs and stops at psilocybin, the active principle of a type of mushrooms. Editorially, in 2020 the English biologist Merlin Sheldrake published “The hidden web of life“, an outreach work that approaches the subject from multiple angles.
Argentina has its own fungi explosion. Without going any further, this week “Mushroom Week” was held in Bariloche, an activity organized by Proyecto Rumia, an interdisciplinary group that works on environmental issues. The ethics committee of Hospital Borda authorized the conduct of a study that aims to study how psilocybin can collaborate in psychiatric diagnoses. And from the Fundación Hongos Argentina they assure that the number of consultations is unprecedented.
fungi and development
Francisco Kuhar He is in charge of the scientific editorial direction of the aforementioned foundation and is a researcher at the Conicet. In Bilbao, he launched a fungi venture: Innomy Biotech. It is a startup that grows mycelium -the tissue of fungi- to replace meat. “Mushrooms have a protein that is more similar to the animal than to the vegetable and also allows not to add texturizers,” he said. Regarding the explosion of the subject, he says: “When we started with Hongos Argentina it was very expensive and today the interest from investors, for example, is incredible. Many come because they saw some series”.
In Argentina, kuhar He directed a promising thesis: with his team they found a fungus in Patagonia that is thirty times more resistant than Styrofoam and could replace it in the manufacture of packaging.
There are countless projects in Argentine universities: the Biotechnology Institute of Misiones is studying the production of biofuels from native fungi; at the National University of Luján they analyze how a fungus can improve the production of nurseries and function as a plant biocontroller; At the National University of the Northeast, work is being done with fungi from Corrientes that could control endemic parasitism; and at the National University of Rosario they created an “ecological leather”, a biodegradable material that could be used in the manufacture of clothing, footwear and accessories.
“The ramifications go anywhere. In the world there are groups working on producing materials for the spacecraft of the future that go to Mars. The idea is that they are materials that can be used for construction and that can also be eaten,” he added. kuhar.
Mushrooms, Psilocybin, and Mental Health
The ingestion of so-called hallucinogenic mushrooms is part of a long cultural tradition, especially in Latin America. Historically they were associated with spiritual rituals and, although psychiatry had begun to study their effects in the 20th century, all advances stopped when psilocybin was included in the list of prohibited drugs. However, that is changing.
In March, for example, Australia authorized the use of microdoses of psilocybin for treatment of depression and post-traumatic stress. In Argentina its consumption is illegal although, in fact, there are more and more groups that offer the opportunity to try it in meetings that combine the shamanic with the medicinal.
One of the national pioneers in these studies is Enzo Tagliazucchi, PhD in Physics and Conicet researcher. The specialist insists on the importance of medical consultation -especially in those patients with a psychiatric diagnosis- and warns that there are still no conclusive results. “It’s like it’s a study drug,” he clarifies.
“Depression is a global epidemic and the reality is that the drugs that exist are not that good. The dynamics that a substance such as psilocybin would offer is very different, because it is a drug for single consumption and with a much better safety profile than that of others that we know of, ”he says.
In a 2016 study, Johns Hopkins University in the United States already demonstrated the therapeutic effects of psilocybin in cancer patients with depression and anxiety. tagliazucchi Now it intends to replicate that study at Hospital Borda with the aim of confirming its results and, furthermore, incorporating a new variable. The hypothesis is that meditation may potentiate the effects.
Approval by the hospital ethics committee is one of the signs that the taboo is beginning to be broken. However, it still needs to be carried out: there are bureaucratic problems to import a prohibited substance and high costs. “There are good expectations. Perhaps psilocybin is not the panacea that some hope for, but after this revolution it would be strange if mushrooms did not leave a mark in the pharmacopoeia and in psychiatry”, added the expert.
Mushrooms, think differently about nature
Gabriela Klier, PhD in Biological Sciences and one of the organizers of the activity in Bariloche, was surprised that the two talks they gave exceeded expectations: “They lasted three hours and there were more than a hundred people in each one. I have been teaching for years and it seemed incredible to me to see so many people so diverse paying attention”. The slogan of the week was “What do mushrooms allow us to think?”
The aim of the group goes beyond the typical studies in natural sciences. They investigate the connection with the environment and philosophy. “There are studies that show that if a fire comes, the mycorrhizae -which are the symbiotic associations between the fungi and the roots of the plants- transmit that information so that the trees can release of volatile elements. It’s very poetic. In the workshops that we give, these examples allow us to manage other stories of the natural world that are not those of competition and those of capitalist individualism that we have always been taught. If we look at mushrooms, we can think about our life in relation to that of all other beings and that leads us to take care of the place we are in is to take care of ourselves. It is an invitation to be able to leave that philanthropic place with the environment or that look of a superior human who cares for nature,” he says. Klier.
