One more try, this time if anyone posts about GMO or other off topic issues I will delete them quickly, you can PM me with the off topic questions, and I will try an answer them. I just want this thread to continue for more then a few days....
-SamS
CANNABIS DNA PROJECT
Cannabis Colleagues,
Greetings from the International Hemp Association in Amsterdam. We are writing to tell you about an exciting research program using modern DNA analysis to build a family tree for Cannabis, and to request your participation.
We are collaborating with a US-based group working on a definitive large-scale phylogenetic study of the evolution of Cannabis. Key researchers include Mowgli Holmes, the chief scientific officer at Phylos Bioscience and Rob DeSalle, a professor of evolutionary biology at Columbia University and curator at the American Museum of Natural History.
Presently, the team is building a high-resolution map of the Cannabis genome, based on a modern hybrid THC/CBD strain, using PacBio long-read Next-Gen Sequencing (NGS). The map will serve as a reference key for analysis of thousands of other accessions using an SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) NGS protocol called GBS (Genotyping By Sequencing) allowing high-resolution characterization of each accession.
So far, the group has sequenced over 400 drug-type Cannabis samples. DNA extraction equipment is installed in nine Cannabis testing labs in six US states, and we continue to gather modern hybrid drug varieties. In the next month the group will finish collecting and sequencing our first 1000 samples. In order to collect data from ancient seeds the group is modifying protocols used for sequencing fragmented Pleistocene DNA samples, developing protocols to work with single seeds, and adding a Whole Genome Amplification step to increase DNA yield.
In two or three months we hope to have a provisional relationship map worked out that we can put on the web and will let us ID modern strains and hopefully at least test theories concerning the evolution of Cannabis.
Within six months we will analyze additional modern cultivars plus traditional landraces and possibly herbarium sheets and archeological materials. From there on we will add to the live database which will continue to grow as more samples are received although the architecture should not change. Genome data will be studied via network theory to address the issues of hybridization and reticulation in the phylogeny.
Cannabis is an incredibly varied genus made up of a myriad of local landrace varieties and modern cultivars as well as their feral and wild relatives. This research will generate a huge amount of sequence data and unique SNPs spread over many thousands of samples, and we feel confident we can resolve the evolution of Cannabis under domestication.
To further our study and create as complete an evolutionary tree as possible we need seeds collected overseas (or reproduced domestically) and have not been interbred with modern drug hybrids. We are interested in ALL Cannabis whether grown for fiber, seed or drug production as well as feral and wild populations. We can now collect sufficient high-quality DNA for analysis from a single seed. And there is no requirement to grow the seeds, so we can also use dead seeds. Many conscious travelers, marijuana users and growers collected seeds that they never got around to sowing, and now years later they are dead. Dead seeds are useless to growers and breeders, but they still contain valuable genetic information that can provide us with deeper insights into Cannabis’s evolution. It is also legal for us to send dead non-viable seeds to our lab in the USA by post.
If you have any seeds you feel may be of interest (living or dead) and want to contribute to this fascinating research feel free to contact us, just PM SamS at IC. We will provide a Netherlands PO Box for you to send the seed samples to us and we will provide an optional questionnaire about each batch of seeds. Batches can range from just a single to 25+ seeds.
As research progresses we will share data with you about any accessions you provide. Upon completion the results will change how we all look at Cannabis, and we will better understand the heritage of modern Cannabis cultivars. Growers will be able to see how their varieties (as well as traditional landraces sent by contributors) fit into the big picture – to determine the landrace origins of modern hybrids (ex., Jamaican, Mexican, Colombian, etc.) and explore deeper evolutionary relationships. Fascinating, eh?
If you have any questions please feel free to contact us.
All the best,
Rob Clarke and Sam Skunkman
Many people have asked us questions about our projects. The questions below are the ones we hear again and again. We want our work to be a force for good, and we intend to be transparent about how and why we’re doing it.
Why is Phylos sequencing the DNA of all these Cannabis strains?
A few reasons. First we have some scientific questions we just want answered. We want to know how Cannabis has evolved, what its history was like, and how it has co-evolved with humans. And we want to know what domestication does to the shape of evolution.
We also want to understand today’s crazy mix of hybrid strains. We want to know where they came from, why they’re so different, and what makes each one unique.
Ultimately we want to use this information to transform the Cannabis industry, by making it so people know exactly what they’re getting when they work with or buy a specific strain of Cannabis.
Will Phylos make and sell genetically modified Cannabis?
No. Absolutely not.
Will someone else make and sell genetically modified Cannabis?
Maybe. But it won’t be us.
Will Phylos grow or sell the strains that are submitted?
No. We have no ownership or rights over plants that are submitted for identification, and we will never grow any of them. It’s also not possible to use DNA sequence data, DNA itself, or dead plant tissue to regenerate a living plant. It is possible to clone from fresh leaf tissue, but if we accept samples of this type we destroy them in the DNA collection process.
Will Phylos patent the strains that are submitted? Doesn’t sequencing the DNA of something let you control it or patent it?
We won’t patent anything that is submitted to us for sequencing. We don’t believe that anyone should (or can) patent existing Cannabis strains. Here are a few important facts about patents and plants:
* Intellectual property protection for a plant variety can be obtained through the USDA Plant Variety Protection Office, but only for plants on their official list. Cannabis is not on that list, and likely won’t be on it until it is legal at the federal level
* Intellectual property protection for plant varieties can also be obtained through the US Patent Office. To apply for a plant patent you have to declare that you successfully grew your a unique and novel Cannabis variety somewhere on U.S. soil. This would be both difficult to prove, and an admission of violating federal law. We don’t believe plant patents will be available for Cannabis varieties until it is legal at the federal level.
* If it were possible to obtain patent protection over a Cannabis variety, having the DNA sequence would not allow you to do so. You would need a great deal of other information, and of course the plant itself.
* It is also not possible to patent Cannabis DNA. After the recent United States Supreme Court decision in Assoc. for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, it is no longer possible to patent naturally occurring DNA sequences.
* Only things that are NEW can be patented. Once something is publicly known, or sold commercially, patent protection is no longer available. Once something has been sold commercially, it’s too late. Cannabis strains that are currently in the public domain will stay there forever and cannot be patented. Which is a good thing.
But doesn’t Big Agribusiness want to patent all the Cannabis strains in the world and then make it illegal for me to grow any of them?
Maybe. But existing varieties in the public domain cannot be patented.
If someone genetically modified a Cannabis strain, could they patent it?
Maybe. But it won’t be us. Also, if someone genetically modifies a particular strain and then patents it, that still gives them no control over the original strain.
What will happen if it DOES become possible to patent Cannabis varieties?
People will probably breed new strains and patent them. This could be a positive thing for small breeders, because they could require large producers to pay them licensing fees for genuinely new strains. If this is ever possible, we believe Cannabis strains should be protected only for commercial use – private and non-commercial use of any strain should be unrestricted.
What will Phylos do with the information it collects from sequencing the DNA of different Cannabis varieties?
We are using it to construct an evolutionary map of the history and relationships of Cannabis varieties. We will publish this data and make it available to the research community. The individual data from each sample will also be freely available to the person who submitted it.
What will I get if I submit a sample for the Cannabis Evolution Project?
You can if you want get a copy of a Material Transfer Agreement identifying and describing your sample, and indicating that you are not transferring any rights of any kind along with it. It will also indicate that you’re entitled to the unique data we generate from your sample, and include a sample ID number that will give you access to the data we post on the web when it’s complete.
Our lawyers have asked us to add this: We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice.
(I personally was trying to avoid having to know the real identity or address of anyone that sent in samples, that is why I suggest a different name and return address, to protect the innocent, and if you want an MTA I am not so sure how to do that? Wont you need to sign your real name and address for it to be legal? I would not ask people to do that. I do number the samples with an ID number that I can give contributors when I actually send the seeds to the USA, mostly I am still collecting, I have only sent a few samples of my seeds so far as the method to make them unviable is still being evaluated for use for DNA extraction and sequencing work.
We may end up extracting the DNA in Amsterdam and just sending the DNA only to the USA as that is unrestricted and better quality DNA also easier to extract and not fragmented.
We're finding out that there is in fact an issue with the heat treatment. It's not terrible, we can still get lots of DNA, and we can still use it. But it's fragmented, so that we're having to treat it the way we treat ancient DNA. That's a different technique, and it's more time consuming and more expensive.
So we want to avoid heat treatment if we can, but we'll accept it if we have to. In some cases, we'll just have to do it and deal with the hassle like with the ancient samples. But we're working to change the protocol slightly so that it also has better results.
-SamS)
So if you are interested in helping or have any questions PM me.
-SamS
CANNABIS DNA PROJECT
Cannabis Colleagues,
Greetings from the International Hemp Association in Amsterdam. We are writing to tell you about an exciting research program using modern DNA analysis to build a family tree for Cannabis, and to request your participation.
We are collaborating with a US-based group working on a definitive large-scale phylogenetic study of the evolution of Cannabis. Key researchers include Mowgli Holmes, the chief scientific officer at Phylos Bioscience and Rob DeSalle, a professor of evolutionary biology at Columbia University and curator at the American Museum of Natural History.
Presently, the team is building a high-resolution map of the Cannabis genome, based on a modern hybrid THC/CBD strain, using PacBio long-read Next-Gen Sequencing (NGS). The map will serve as a reference key for analysis of thousands of other accessions using an SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) NGS protocol called GBS (Genotyping By Sequencing) allowing high-resolution characterization of each accession.
So far, the group has sequenced over 400 drug-type Cannabis samples. DNA extraction equipment is installed in nine Cannabis testing labs in six US states, and we continue to gather modern hybrid drug varieties. In the next month the group will finish collecting and sequencing our first 1000 samples. In order to collect data from ancient seeds the group is modifying protocols used for sequencing fragmented Pleistocene DNA samples, developing protocols to work with single seeds, and adding a Whole Genome Amplification step to increase DNA yield.
In two or three months we hope to have a provisional relationship map worked out that we can put on the web and will let us ID modern strains and hopefully at least test theories concerning the evolution of Cannabis.
Within six months we will analyze additional modern cultivars plus traditional landraces and possibly herbarium sheets and archeological materials. From there on we will add to the live database which will continue to grow as more samples are received although the architecture should not change. Genome data will be studied via network theory to address the issues of hybridization and reticulation in the phylogeny.
Cannabis is an incredibly varied genus made up of a myriad of local landrace varieties and modern cultivars as well as their feral and wild relatives. This research will generate a huge amount of sequence data and unique SNPs spread over many thousands of samples, and we feel confident we can resolve the evolution of Cannabis under domestication.
To further our study and create as complete an evolutionary tree as possible we need seeds collected overseas (or reproduced domestically) and have not been interbred with modern drug hybrids. We are interested in ALL Cannabis whether grown for fiber, seed or drug production as well as feral and wild populations. We can now collect sufficient high-quality DNA for analysis from a single seed. And there is no requirement to grow the seeds, so we can also use dead seeds. Many conscious travelers, marijuana users and growers collected seeds that they never got around to sowing, and now years later they are dead. Dead seeds are useless to growers and breeders, but they still contain valuable genetic information that can provide us with deeper insights into Cannabis’s evolution. It is also legal for us to send dead non-viable seeds to our lab in the USA by post.
If you have any seeds you feel may be of interest (living or dead) and want to contribute to this fascinating research feel free to contact us, just PM SamS at IC. We will provide a Netherlands PO Box for you to send the seed samples to us and we will provide an optional questionnaire about each batch of seeds. Batches can range from just a single to 25+ seeds.
As research progresses we will share data with you about any accessions you provide. Upon completion the results will change how we all look at Cannabis, and we will better understand the heritage of modern Cannabis cultivars. Growers will be able to see how their varieties (as well as traditional landraces sent by contributors) fit into the big picture – to determine the landrace origins of modern hybrids (ex., Jamaican, Mexican, Colombian, etc.) and explore deeper evolutionary relationships. Fascinating, eh?
If you have any questions please feel free to contact us.
All the best,
Rob Clarke and Sam Skunkman
Many people have asked us questions about our projects. The questions below are the ones we hear again and again. We want our work to be a force for good, and we intend to be transparent about how and why we’re doing it.
Why is Phylos sequencing the DNA of all these Cannabis strains?
A few reasons. First we have some scientific questions we just want answered. We want to know how Cannabis has evolved, what its history was like, and how it has co-evolved with humans. And we want to know what domestication does to the shape of evolution.
We also want to understand today’s crazy mix of hybrid strains. We want to know where they came from, why they’re so different, and what makes each one unique.
Ultimately we want to use this information to transform the Cannabis industry, by making it so people know exactly what they’re getting when they work with or buy a specific strain of Cannabis.
Will Phylos make and sell genetically modified Cannabis?
No. Absolutely not.
Will someone else make and sell genetically modified Cannabis?
Maybe. But it won’t be us.
Will Phylos grow or sell the strains that are submitted?
No. We have no ownership or rights over plants that are submitted for identification, and we will never grow any of them. It’s also not possible to use DNA sequence data, DNA itself, or dead plant tissue to regenerate a living plant. It is possible to clone from fresh leaf tissue, but if we accept samples of this type we destroy them in the DNA collection process.
Will Phylos patent the strains that are submitted? Doesn’t sequencing the DNA of something let you control it or patent it?
We won’t patent anything that is submitted to us for sequencing. We don’t believe that anyone should (or can) patent existing Cannabis strains. Here are a few important facts about patents and plants:
* Intellectual property protection for a plant variety can be obtained through the USDA Plant Variety Protection Office, but only for plants on their official list. Cannabis is not on that list, and likely won’t be on it until it is legal at the federal level
* Intellectual property protection for plant varieties can also be obtained through the US Patent Office. To apply for a plant patent you have to declare that you successfully grew your a unique and novel Cannabis variety somewhere on U.S. soil. This would be both difficult to prove, and an admission of violating federal law. We don’t believe plant patents will be available for Cannabis varieties until it is legal at the federal level.
* If it were possible to obtain patent protection over a Cannabis variety, having the DNA sequence would not allow you to do so. You would need a great deal of other information, and of course the plant itself.
* It is also not possible to patent Cannabis DNA. After the recent United States Supreme Court decision in Assoc. for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, it is no longer possible to patent naturally occurring DNA sequences.
* Only things that are NEW can be patented. Once something is publicly known, or sold commercially, patent protection is no longer available. Once something has been sold commercially, it’s too late. Cannabis strains that are currently in the public domain will stay there forever and cannot be patented. Which is a good thing.
But doesn’t Big Agribusiness want to patent all the Cannabis strains in the world and then make it illegal for me to grow any of them?
Maybe. But existing varieties in the public domain cannot be patented.
If someone genetically modified a Cannabis strain, could they patent it?
Maybe. But it won’t be us. Also, if someone genetically modifies a particular strain and then patents it, that still gives them no control over the original strain.
What will happen if it DOES become possible to patent Cannabis varieties?
People will probably breed new strains and patent them. This could be a positive thing for small breeders, because they could require large producers to pay them licensing fees for genuinely new strains. If this is ever possible, we believe Cannabis strains should be protected only for commercial use – private and non-commercial use of any strain should be unrestricted.
What will Phylos do with the information it collects from sequencing the DNA of different Cannabis varieties?
We are using it to construct an evolutionary map of the history and relationships of Cannabis varieties. We will publish this data and make it available to the research community. The individual data from each sample will also be freely available to the person who submitted it.
What will I get if I submit a sample for the Cannabis Evolution Project?
You can if you want get a copy of a Material Transfer Agreement identifying and describing your sample, and indicating that you are not transferring any rights of any kind along with it. It will also indicate that you’re entitled to the unique data we generate from your sample, and include a sample ID number that will give you access to the data we post on the web when it’s complete.
Our lawyers have asked us to add this: We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice.
(I personally was trying to avoid having to know the real identity or address of anyone that sent in samples, that is why I suggest a different name and return address, to protect the innocent, and if you want an MTA I am not so sure how to do that? Wont you need to sign your real name and address for it to be legal? I would not ask people to do that. I do number the samples with an ID number that I can give contributors when I actually send the seeds to the USA, mostly I am still collecting, I have only sent a few samples of my seeds so far as the method to make them unviable is still being evaluated for use for DNA extraction and sequencing work.
We may end up extracting the DNA in Amsterdam and just sending the DNA only to the USA as that is unrestricted and better quality DNA also easier to extract and not fragmented.
We're finding out that there is in fact an issue with the heat treatment. It's not terrible, we can still get lots of DNA, and we can still use it. But it's fragmented, so that we're having to treat it the way we treat ancient DNA. That's a different technique, and it's more time consuming and more expensive.
So we want to avoid heat treatment if we can, but we'll accept it if we have to. In some cases, we'll just have to do it and deal with the hassle like with the ancient samples. But we're working to change the protocol slightly so that it also has better results.
-SamS)
So if you are interested in helping or have any questions PM me.
