Glass Pharms and the Advanced Plant Growth Centre at The James Hutton Institute are to conduct a medical cannabis research program, funded by UKRI's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
The three-year project, (Exploiting Controlled Environments for the Development of Optimised Cannabis Sativa Phenotypes for Pharmaceutical Applications), will aim to support the growing need for medicinal cannabis by helping standardize the product to meet pharmaceutical quality through environment manipulation and the development of new cannabis plant architectures.
Currently, cannabis varieties, or cultivars, vary greatly based on the region they are grown in – creating different cannabinoid profiles. The research in Dundee will aim to use Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) technologies to create a consistent product.
The plants will be grown to maturity at Glass Pharms' purpose-built 2.4-hectare semi-closed glasshouse facility that has advanced sensor technology tracking environmental conditions and plant growth with a robotics-based container system that moves the plants through the different climate zones within the glasshouse suitable to their developmental stage to optimize consistent growth across multiple harvests.
The research will be led by Professor Derek Stewart, Director of the Advanced Plant Growth Centre, who commented: "This is an exciting project for the James Hutton Institute team to be involved with."
James Duckenfield, CEO of Glass Pharms said "We believe that working with the Advanced Plant Growth Centre on this research project will directly lead to better health outcomes for UK patients. The APGC and Glass Pharms' advanced cultivation facility is the ideal combination to develop and stabilize cannabis cultivars intended for use in medicine."
For more information:
Glass Pharms
glasspharms.com
The James Hutton Institute
[email protected]
www.hutton.ac.uk