Cannabis crimes can happen in the backwoods…and in back rooms. We don’t deal in either.
From the beginning, Medicinal Genomics has been dedicated to advancing cannabis science through transparency, collaboration, and empowering others. And we believe that people and companies should be judged on their actions, not their words.
We demonstrated that in our very first act as a company, when in 2011, our CSO Kevin McKernan sequenced the Chemdog cultivar genome, and published it publicly, and invited other researchers in the community to use it.
Medicinal Genomics started in a hotel room in Holland, extracting DNA from cannabis purchased at Amsterdam coffee shops.
In 2018, we collaborated with Dash, Pacific Biosciences, New England Biolabs, and Phase Genomics to sequence the Jamaican Lion cultivar using the best sequencing tools available. The result of that project is the most complete cannabis reference genome to date. Again, we made that data public and invited the world to use it. Industry leaders such as Seth Crawford (OregonCBD), Keith Allen (SteepHill), Reggie Gaudino (SteepHill), Phillipe Henry (VSSL), Jesse Leach (Colorado Seed), and others have used Jamaican Lion to advance their respective breeding and research projects.
The StrainSEEK® Strain Identification and Registration Service we offer our customers is built on the same principles we use in our own sequencing projects. The data generated from each StrainSEEK® test is published on the Dash blockchain, a public, time-stamped, tamper-proof database. No matter what happens to Medicinal Genomics or Kannapedia.net, there is a record of each StrainSEEK® test on the blockchain network that can never be erased or edited. We also provide FastQ files to our customers that cover more than 3.5 million bases across thousands of high-value targets, including 29 cannabinoid and terpene synthase genes as well as several genes for seed production and sex determination.
We built the youPCR® Plant Screening Platform as a way for cultivators to avoid using companies who offer testing services as a data intake engine. Using equipment and reagents that cost less than the average commercial LED light, growers can screen their own plants, on-site for gender, cannabinoid production, and pathogen infection. youPCR® is a genomic breeding tool that anyone can use.
Dick Fitts recently wrote, “We need a scientific community that’s open source, fully transparent and works for everybody equally.”
At Medicinal Genomics, we believe that, too. Just look at our record.
