Towards genomics-assisted breeding of medical marijuana

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BedroCan is a leading licensed producer of medical marijuana in Canada. Its R&D department has identified a set of compounds in marijuana that influence consumer preference and medicinal effect. Their aim is to breed novel marijuana strains with specific profiles of these compounds. But this task is challenging: performing detailed chemical tests of thousands of offspring in their breeding programme is prohibitively time consuming and expensive. They have a clear breeding target but cannot achieve it on their own. The proposed project will foster a new partnership between BedroCan and the Myles lab that will develop the first genomics-assisted breeding toolkit for marijuana. By the end of the project timeline, we will identify a novel set of genetic markers that BedroCan's breeders can use to identify improved strains with the desired chemical profiles at the seedling stage, without the need to grow them to maturity and perform expensive chemical tests. Not only will this accelerate BedroCan's breeding programme, but the new knowledge from this project will generate valuable intellectual property for BedroCan. Furthermore, the aim is to then further develop the resulting IP into a commercial genetic test to be licensed to others, providing a potential novel source of revenue for the company. The discoveries from this project will not only lend legitimacy to a rapidly growing, multi-billion dollar industry in need of scientific input, but it will also accelerate the improvement of marijuana strains that attain higher consumer acceptance and better medical outcomes for Canadians.