Interview with Dr. Smith
Hello my name is James I am interviewing Dr. Jane Smith PhD
in plant physiology and genetics about her experience in the plant field and
her thoughts about the medical marijuana industry.
James : Ok Doctor
Smith I am going to start off with the questions.
Question 1 : Tell me about your education and training
dealing with plants and genetics.
Dr. Smith: Hello, I have
had a lifetime of experience in plants in general but I went to the University
of Minnesota in 1982 to pursue a degree and I studied plant physiology and
genetics. And the more I studied the more I wanted to learn about plants in
general. After receiving my PhD from the University of Minnesota I went to the
University of California and Berkley for my post doctorate study. My Post-Doctoral
Study was done on the cell division of plants
James: How long did
your tenure at the University of Berkley last?
Dr. Smith: 2 years.
James: Can you tell
me about some of the plants you worked with at the University of Berkley in
your study of cell division in plants?
Dr. Smith: I did mostly carrots in tissue culture.
James: Where there any new scientifically discoveries made
in your research?
Dr. Smith I was able to find out a series of proteins which coordinate
with the onset of cell division in plant cells and I was able to develop an
antibody to each of those proteins and use it as a diagnostic tool to tell if
cell division is starting or not. I
think I ended up with about 12 to 15 different proteins that were indicative of
cell division.
James: Is that research
paper available online anywhere?
Dr. Jane: Yes it is The
plant cell is the name of the journal.
James: Ok we will look it up and post it on the forum for
users to read.
You can click on the link below to read the paper.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00634474?LI=true#page-1
Dr. Smith. After the University of Berkley I went to Japan
to work on the same problem only in a different way.
James: What Kind of different way?
Dr. Smith: They were working on the hard stuff, they were
manually physically picking up single cells with micro bi-pads and tracking the
outcome of each of those cells. To see whether they make cell divisions come
up. So we were able to show that my antibodies coordinated with their
observations in their cells.
James: So did they correlate?
Dr. Smith: They did
James: Oh very nice
so it verified your work at Berkeley.
Dr. Smith: And it was a big deal at the time.
James: Why was it a
big deal and why?
Dr. Smith: Well because first of all nobody ever found
anything like that before and was just a general understanding they did
something cell division started. Nobody every had a diagnostic probes for saying yes
or no. So that was a big deal. And
secondly we learned. that there are a lot of similarities between cell division
of plants and animals. And so I went on
later to show that the same similarities in cell division for plants are also
found in animals.
James: That is a big deal, because that is kind of showing
that plants and animals have a common ancestor.
Dr. Smith My studies proved conclusively that that plants
and animals have a common biology and origin and common at that very rudimentary
level so that so that you don’t expect that things are so different between the
final outcome of plants and animals. You would think that something so fundamental
as cell division should have some common links and in fact that’s true.
James: Yeah that’s true amazing I didn’t know it was you
that made that discovery!. Ok so tell me about some other types of plants you
have worked on during your career.
Dr. Jane: When I was
in Minnesota the number one plant that state was corn. So I worked in cell
division with corn cells with different laboratories. After I finished Berkeley and Japan. I went to
work for American ** which is a big chemical company. I worked there on wheat, corn and rice.
Each one of those plants is quite different from one another
in how they grow.
James: What were the goals of the companies you worked for? Where the trying to get bigger yields? Were
they trying to cross the plants with other hybrids to make them stronger?
Dr. Smith: They had a gene, a particular herbicide resistant
that matched with a chemical they wanted to sell. When they put the gene into
plant cells the plant cells wouldn’t divide. If the plant doesn’t divide your
dead in the water with no plant. So because of my experience in cell division I
was able to fix that problems for them. It was very interesting work.
James: Your pretty much
new to the cannabis world so tell me what do you think about how it grows and
the differences between marihuana and other plants you done research on? Has
anything surprised you in the last 2 months working with the plants?
Dr. Smith: For one thing it is very usual for any type of
plant to go from seed to feed in a 3 to 4 month period. That is very unique,
because usually it takes 5 to 6 months for any of these crop plants to do this.
The other thing that is distinctive about marijuana versus other plants is its
distinct growth phases.
Very few other plants have these three stages which are germination vegetation and flower phase.
People have tried to study this in other plants like Ivy for years.
James: I think one of the most important things that marijuana
growers look for is the speed of which a cannabis plant finishes its flower
stage. For example at the red emperor collective we have a strain called Cherry
Bomb that finishes in 45 days. This is pretty fast compared to most indicas
which finish around 60 days. A lot of sativas
take 10 weeks to finish that’s why you don’t see a lot of pure Sativas on the
market. For one thing they keep stretching during flower which is not good for
most indoor growers who have height restrictions. But also the extra 2 weeks
means extra electricity, fertilizer and labor cost. The faster the plant
finishes the lower the cost will be for the grower versus sativa strains.
James: With your previous experience do you think there are
any different ways to make a marihuana plants finish faster?
Dr. Smith: I thought about that a lot recently. I think what
I have observed is that the healthier the environment is the faster plants will
finish. Also Hydroponic plants tend to finish faster than plants grown in a soilless
mix.
James: Do you think there is a way to genetically modify
plants besides known breeding programs that already exist?
Dr. Smith: I think the selection process and the current
breeding programs are better suited for finding fast flowering strains than
trying to genetically modify strains, however this thesis could change the
further my research goes into the plant.
James: What similarities have seen with cannabis plants
compared to your past research work?
Dr.Smith: So far from what I have observed is the seed
germination biology is similar to other plant types that I have worked with. There
all are pretty much the same.
James: Coming from a lab background and testing other
different types of plants what do you think of the current testing procedures
available for marihuana? For example testing for THC percentages versus CBD
levels?
Dr. Smith: At first I was discouraged about the information available.
But now I’m starting to find some Dutch publications that is shedding a better
insight on testing procedures. A lot of places claim they can test for this or
test for that but they don’t provide methods that would allow it to be verified.
The trouble is they have a choice of very high sophisticated one sample at a
time technology. Now there is a group in
Israel that achieved a breeding program but they don’t say how they do it or
what meth ology they used.
James: Yeah a lot of companies seem to be keeping their
information secret. I read an article last year on how dispensary owners in
Colorado and Michigan were getting different results from testing companies. So
I tried my own experiment. I grew out a blue dream strain harvested it and then sent the same plant sample to 3 different
testing facilities. I got back different results from each company. One had the
CBS at .o2 another had it at 4.5. The TCH percentages ranged from 9 percent up
to 26 percent. So that is defiantly a
problem that needs to be solved fast.
Dr. Smith Yes all the important details are not revealed. And
also in San Diego there’s a group there working on testing and supposedly they
have a way of testing cannabis but their
also not revealing their methods.
James: Yeah saying one thing and proving it are two different
animals. Anybody can say yeah I can tell you the genetic makeup of a plant and
what kind of strain it is. Yeah but can you prove it? That’s what owners want
to know and patients should know also exactly what their putting into their
bodies. I just have a feeling that there is no way to test percentages accurately
and there probably never will be just because of the way the cannabis plant
grows. The chemical composition of the marijuana plant can be different from
the top bud to the bottom buds. It is known that the most potent part of the
plant is the top bud. Also the chemical composition of the plant changes daily
during the harvest window and also during the curing process. For example if I
cut down the plant and test it right away I will get 10 percent THC for
example. But if I put that same strain in a jar and cure it for 2 weeks now the
entire chemical makeup of the plant has changed. These are just two of the most
obvious problems I see with testing I will be starting a whole new thread on
that subject later.
James: Ok tell me what kind of work you are doing now in
your research with cannabis at the Red Emperor collective?
Dr. Smith I realized that the CBD protocol is what we really
want to find in the cannabis plants. There have been a lot of recent publications
about CBD having cancer fighting properties. So one my first projects is to
determine a way to economical test cannabis plants for their CBD properties. In
most marijuana plants the property is low. So I am concentrating on using a simple
TLC protocol that we can use to screen ten to hundreds of plants at a time for their CBD content.
James: What does TLC stand for?
Dr. Smith: Thin Layer Chromatography
James: If this is successful is that something that the average
marijuana patient could do at home? And would it cost like $50,000 ?
Dr. Smith: Oh no! So at the most the cost would be around
$300 if we can figure it out.
James: So it would be affordable for growers other
dispensaries and average day cannabis patients.
Dr. Smith: exactly
James: Well we are very happy to have you here with
dispensaryexchange.com and look forward to your research blogs in the future.
Dr. Smith is available at our collective Thursdays and Fridays from 9am to 5 pm
feel free to stop bye and get your tough growing questions answered. The
medical marijuana industry is truly blessed to have you in their mist and we
look forward to applying your excellent plant experience in the emerging field
of cannabis research. Thanks again Dr. Smith
Dr. Smith: Thank you
