Do you consider the results as ground-breaking?

‘No, I don’t. Any professional in breeding or genetics with even peripheral knowledge of the cannabis industry would have bet that the ‘sativa’ and ‘indica’ labelling in the current cannabis market was unlikely to reflect genetic reality. It just took some data to demonstrate the degree to which this is the case, which we have done and continue to do.’

How did you come up to study cannabis?

‘Our laboratory developed an interest in cannabis because we do similar research in genetic ancestry deconvolution in other species, like grapes and apples. It made a lot of sense to extend our expertise to cannabis since it is an economically valuable agricultural species, little was known about its genetic structure, and there was widespread use of a dichotomy (i.e. ‘sativa’ vs. ‘indica’) that was believed to reflect ancestry. For the study together with Bedrocan, we benefited from their expertise in chemical profiling and paired it with our expertise in genomics and bioinformatics. The result has been fruitful in terms of insights into the question of variety identity.’