[SoulMachete]

interesting article...
peace....

https://www.boston.com/lifestyle/heal...?p1=News_links

(CBS News) A small Massachusetts-based company says it has successfully sequenced a marijuana plant, paving the way for more research into the therapeutic effects of Cannabis - including its potential for treating cancer and inflammatory diseases.

Medicinal Genomics published the raw sequence strings at midnight. The company's findings have not yet undergone peer review. Medicinal Genomics put the data up on Amazon.com's EC2 cloud-computing system.The more than 131 billion bases of sequence, which is believed to constitute the largest known gene collection of the Cannabis genomes so far, will be made available to the scientific public sometime this fall.

The breakthrough also raises the possibility that researchers will eventually be able to weed out -no pun intended - the psychoactive effects pot smoking has on people while enhancing the medicinal aspects of Cannabis.

It's only happenstance but Medicinal Genomics is headquartered both in Marblehead, Mass. and Amsterdam, where the company's research facilities are found.

"This is the beginning of a more scientific approach to the genetics of the species," Richard Gibbs, director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told Bloomberg. "This is not really about marijuana; it's about pharmacology."

The Boston Globe has more about Medicinal Genomics here

[HempHut]

You think the media used to talk about the cannabis community "genetically engineering super strains" before, just wait until some of the loony media agencies get ahold of this new item -- the Cannabis Sativa genome has now been sequenced:

https://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/08...ally_weed.html

At last, the field of genomics has something to offer Cheech and Chong. DNA sequencing hit a new high last night with the midnight release of the Cannabis sativa genome. The raw sequence was posted on Amazon’s EC2 public cloud computing service by a young company called Medicinal Genomics, which aims to explore the genomes of therapeutic plants.

Thus far the company is only posting the raw sequence reads – meaning that the over 131 billion bases of shotgun sequence have not yet undergone the important and arduous process of being assembled into contiguous chunks. For now, the sequence is fragmented into hundreds of thousands of snippets. But Medicinal Genomics founder Kevin McKernan says he estimates the size of the C. sativa genome to be about 400 million bases – roughly three times the genome of that other weed, the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.

And in case you're wondering: the DNA was extracted and prepped for sequencing in a laboratory in Amsterdam.

McKernan says he was turned on to the idea of sequencing cannabis by a 2003 publication in Nature Reviews Cancer about the many potential uses – including fighting cancer – of cannabinoids. C. sativa makes about sixty of the compounds. Although THC has gotten the most attention, McKernan hopes his company’s data will help scientists explore a few of the others, and perhaps guide plant breeding programs to generate new Cannabis strains.

No word yet on whether the information can also help researchers construct a van made out of marijuana, but chances are that some enthusiast out there will look into that possibility if the company follows through on its pledge to make genome annotations available as an iPad app next fall.

Also appealing to McKernan: the growing medical marijuana market, which he says is swelling by over 50% a year. “It’s going to have to be a fairly regulated market,” he says, “and regulation is going to come through genetics and fingerprinting of which strains are approved.”

McKernan’s name may ring a bell for sequencing buffs. In 2000, he cofounded Agencourt Biosciences, a spinoff of which eventually created the technology underlying the popular SOLiD sequencing platform now sold by Life Technologies.

McKernan dipped into his own bank account to launch Medicinal Genomics, and says he also has funding from the network of angel investors – mostly friends and family – that helped him get Agencourt off the ground in 2000.

The sequence can be found here (they used ChemDawg):

https://csativa.elasticbeanstalk.com/

[Treetops]

https://www.emaxhealth.com/1275/marij...replyids=11075

A company called Medicinal Genomics has published the genetic code for the marijuana plant, specifically the cannabis species Cannabis sativa and C. indica. This advancement opens the door to new treatments using the highly controversial plant, which has been legalized in 16 states for medicinal purposes.

A new cannabis-based drug is approved for MS
Now that about 131 billion base pairs of genetic information from the entire genomes of the cannabis species have been released, the data could potentially fuel a great number of treatment innovations and make compounds derived from marijuana easier to produce. One of the latest additions to the growing arsenal of marijuana-based medications is an oromucosal spray called Sativex, which is for spasticity due to multiple sclerosis.

Sativex has been approved in Canada (since 2005), New Zealand, UK, and others, but not the United States, where it is an investigational drug being developed as an additive treatment for patients who have persistent pain associated with advanced cancer.

Although sequencing the cannabis was not an easy task, the results of the exhaustive efforts could be fruitful. GW Pharmaceuticals, which produced Sativex, has an extensive international network of scientists working on cannabinoid (cannabis compounds) research in areas such as central nervous system disorders and cancer.

Research into the use of cannabis to help cancer patients is a high priority around the world. A new study published in Cell Death and Differentiation reports that cannabinoids were able to inhibit tumor growth in a lab model of liver cancer. Another recent study, from St. George’s University of London, explored the use of cannabinoids to reduce inflammation associated with cancer.

A university in Madrid, Spain, recently released the results of research into the effectiveness of cannabinoids in breast cancer. Investigators there found “strong preclinical evidence for the use of cannabinoid-based therapies” for the management of a certain type of breast cancer.

There are, of course, the studies and the anti-drug advocates announcing the health damaging aspects of marijuana. The development of cannabis for medicinal use and use of marijuana for recreational purposes, however, are not the same thing.

Marijuana is a botanical, and like many plants, it has the potential to provide a great number of useful medicines. The unlocking of the genetic code for marijuana may help scientists realize that potential.

SOURCES:
Caffarel MM et al. Molecular Cancer 2010 Jul 22; 9:196
GW Pharmaceuticals
Liu WM et al. Current Clinical Pharmacology 2010 Nov 1; 5(4): 281-87
Medicinal Genomics
Vara D et al. Cell Death Differentiation 2011 Jul; 18(7): 1099-111

[MurderDeathKill]

this is such a gross waste of money...

https://www.wfsb.com/story/15525938/f...ologist-at-unh

UNH forensic scientist sets up pot DNA databank


Posted: Sep 22, 2011 12:58 PM CDT
Updated: Sep 22, 2011 1:07 PM CDT
By WFSB Staff


NEW HAVEN, CT (WFSB) -
The University of New Haven says a forensic biologist at the university has set up a national databank for marijuana DNA.

Heather Coyle, working with federal government, has developed a DNA databank that will "scientifically tie the plants from busts in different locations together and identify their source," the university said.

The university claims the database could lead "to bigger busts and high profile arrests."

The university is home to the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences, which is world renowned.

[kyndone]

NBCConnecticut.com
updated 9/26/2011 3:51:36 PM ET2011-09-26T19:51:36

There is a new tool in the ongoing war on drugs and it comes from a forensic scientist at the University of New Haven.
Heather Miller Coyle, an associate professor in the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences is setting up a national databank that will allow law enforcement to track marijuana DNA.
Most people probably didn't even know marijuana had DNA, but Coyle, who specializes in forensic botany, has developed a new method for collecting the drug's genetic fingerprint, making it easy for officers to collect the samples at crime scenes.
“Plant DNA is like the DNA found in humans — it retains its lifelong genetic profile,” says Coyle. “If one person has a suitcase of marijuana and another person has bags of it, we will be able to tell if it came from the same batch,” she said in a news release.
The DNA databank will be similar to one the FBI runs human DNA, the Combined DNA Index System or CODIS. CODIS allows DNA samples from crime scenes to be compared against a computerized database to help identify suspects.
The marijuana version will help law enforcement track where the drug came from and link it to criminal drug trafficking organizations in Mexico, growers in Canada or gangs in the U.S.
“Such a databank and signature mark would be a welcome tool for police and law enforcement agencies,” said Frank Limon, New Haven chief of police. “It’s probable, in some cases, that conspirators of the overall operation may escape investigation and prosecution. The link between production and distribution would aid us in establishing conspiracy cases against the whole operation — not just the dealers and buyers. This would effectively connect the dots to street level narcotics distribution.”
Coyle's project has been funded with more than $100,000 from the National Marijuana Initiative and the National High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program. The groups work together with federal, state and local law enforcement in the detection, disruption and investigation into marijuana trafficking.

[mrcreosote]

Everybody thought it was great news when they mapped the genetic code for cannabis and how useful it would be...

Guess what? Yup, You guessed it.
Read it and weep.

https://www.telegram.com/article/2011...110059843/1116

I'm fucking speechless.
These idiots are completely out of control.

[mrcreosote]

Beat me to it...

I just tried to post this very thing. I'm so pissed that something that could be so useful to sick and dying folks and the Govt. pisses money away on finding who grew the weed.

They should stick to giving automatic weapons to Mexican cartel thugs. Maybe upgrade to bazookas and landmines.
Unbelievable.

[Green lung]

lol .......that aint gunna work.

[ImaginaryFriend]

that aint gunna work.

Why not?

Seems like an obvious way to track networks.

They'll be sticking little pins in the maps of the world, pulling strings and drawing circles.

It'll be like Criminal Minds, only instead of serial killers, it'll be people who monocrop.

But they'll still use maps.