Cannabis Genetics Company Hits Plant Breeding Milestone
CanBreed, an Israel-based cannabis breeding company, recently announced that its research and development efforts to develop powdery mildew resistance in cannabis have actually led to another milestone: successful detection of a genome editing event in cannabis. This discovery was achieved using the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology, which led to its inventors receiving the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
The announcement comes after CanBreed secured a commercial license to the foundational CRISPR-Cas9 patents from the patent holders – Corteva Biosciences and Broad Institute (of MIT and Harvard Universities). It also comes after three years of research carried out by CanBreed’s R&D team, which is composed of geneticists, molecular biologists, and agronomists that joined CanBreed from leading research institutes and seed companies in Israel.
To the best of CanBreed’s knowledge, this is the first time an attempt by a commercial company to edit the Cannabis plant using the CRISPR-Cas9 technology was successful, and the company says this significant achievement is also an important milestone in its roadmap of completing the development and commercialization of its products.
Learn more here.
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