Exploiting Controlled Environments for the Development of Optimised Cannabis Sativa Phenotypes for Pharmaceutical Applications - CE-CannPharm

制药行业相对成熟，并拥有大量日益复杂的科学技术，以及最近的人工智能方法。尽管90%的临床药物开发失败了，但全球人口结构的演变正在推动退行性和神经退行性/功能失调疾病的数量增加，这使得制药公司将重点扩大到基于自然的疗法上，并在这里接受了众所周知的、越来越多的临床支持的药用大麻的好处。下议院图书馆最近的一份研究简报指出，英国是世界上最大的医疗和科学用途合法大麻生产国和出口国，Prohibition Partners预计到2026年，英国的大麻价值将达到10亿英镑，Statista估计全球市场的收入已经超过130亿英镑。然而，制药业的大麻存在一个问题，大麻素的特征随着植物中位置的变化而变化，顶部、中部和底部的花的化学特征显示出+/-20%（或更多）的差异，这大大超出了典型的医药产品耐受性=+/-10%。这造成了一个主要的一致性和分级问题，当它被认为是一种药用药物。在这里，我们与我们的行业合作伙伴玻璃制药有限公司，我们的目标是通过几个途径来解决这个问题。通过筛选不同的sativa种质，我们将建立植物结构变异，目的是探索最终创造具有改变结构的sativa植物的潜力：少一些“圣诞树”，多一些“烛台”形状，花序（花）更均匀地呈现在入射光下。这将对花的生物活性成分组成产生积极的影响，重要的是减少变异。我们还将寻求通过既定的方法使苜蓿相形见绌，从而提高生产率，减少差异，并通过垂直农业探索全面控制环境农业的潜力。这种对环境的绝对控制将使我们能够在作物开发过程中充分利用vf嵌入式灯的可调光强度和波长，为大麻素和萜类物质的含量、组成和变化提供“调节”的机会。与此相结合，我们将阐明光/植物在基因和代谢物水平上的相互作用，以确定重要的基因级联，以期通过传统或现代（基因修饰/基因编辑）育种方法确定基因靶标/标记，以便将来利用。在这里，作为JHI和Glass Pharms有限公司（两家都是高TCH大麻生产许可证持有人）合作的一部分，我们将提供以下内容：大大提高了大麻中含有的活性药物成分在同一植物不同花序（花）上分布的一致性。以矮化和均匀表型为目标，更好地标准化CAE/VF系统的品种表型。定义了操作/定义大麻素含量和成分的条件和过程。在更广泛的背景下，计划中的研究支持了英国在高价值部门经济增长方面的许多政策目标，以及相关的永久性高技能工作，为不断发展的人口和英国农业基础的多样化改善医疗保健。这里提出的科学将巩固并帮助保持英国作为药用大麻生产国和出口国的领先地位。

The pharmaceutical industry is relatively mature and underpinned with a plethora of increasing sophisticated science, technology, and more recently, AI approaches. Despite this 90% of clinical drug development fails but global demographic evolution is driving increased numbers of degenerative and neurodegenerative/dysfunctional disease, and this has seen pharma broaden their focus to nature-based therapies and, here, embrace the long-known, and increasingly clinically underpinned, benefits of medicinal cannabis.A recent research briefing from the House of Commons Library report identified that the UK is the world's biggest producer and exporter of legal cannabis for medical and scientific purposes with Prohibition Partners projecting a UK value of £1Bn by 2026 and Statista estimating a global market already in excess of £13Bn in revenue.However, there is a problem with cannabis for the pharmaceutical industry in that the cannabinoid profile changes with location in the plant with the chemo-profiles of the flowers at the top, middle and bottom showing a variance of an order of +/-20% (or more), which is significantly beyond a typical pharmaceutical product tolerance of =+/-10%. This creates a major consistency and grading problem for C.Sativa when it is considered as a pharmaceutical medicine.Here, with our industry partners Glass Pharms Ltd, we aim to address this via several avenues. Via a screen of diverse C.Sativa germplasm we will establish plant architecture variation with the aim of exploring the potential of ultimately creating C.Sativa plants with an altered architecture: less "Christmas tree"- and more "menorah"-shaped, with inflorescence (flowers) more even presented to the incident light. This should impact positively on flower bioactive content composition and importantly variance redcution.We will also look to increase productivity and reduced variance by dwarfing C.Sativa through established methods and exploring the potential of total controlled environmental agriculture here by vertical farming. This absolute control on the environment will allow us to fully exploit the tuneable light intensity and wavelengths of the VF-embedded lights across crop development offering the opportunity to also "tune" the cannabis cannabinoid and terpenoid content, composition and variance. Allied to this we will elucidate the light/plant interactions at the gene and metabolite levels to identify the important gene cascades with a view to identifying gene targets/markers for future exploitation via traditional or modern (genetic modification/gene editing) breeding approaches.Here as part of a collaboration between JHI and Glass Pharms Ltd, both high TCH cannabis production licence holders, we will deliver the following: Greatly improved consistency in the distribution of the active pharmaceutical ingredients contained in Cannabis Sativa across different inflorescence (flowers) on the same plant.Better standardisation of cultivar phenotypes for CAE/VF systems with a target for dwarfed and uniform phenotypes.Defined conditions and process to manipulate/define cannabinoid content and composition. In a wider context the planned research underpins many of the UK policy targets in terms of high-value sector economic growth with associated permanent highly skilled jobs, improvement of healthcare for an evolving demographic and the diversification of the UK agricultural base. The proposed science here will underpin and help maintain the UK's lead as a medicinal cannabis producer and exported.