DEF CON 26 CANNABIS VILLAGE - Mark Lewis - Hacking Phenotypic Pathways In Cannabis
Channel: DEFCONConference
Date: 2018-12-02

Dr. Lewis earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Purdue University in 2007 and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Rose Hulman Institute of Technology in 2001. His interest in the science of cannabis spans decades and in 2011, Dr. Lewis founded NaPro Research and assembled a team of chemists and plant scientists to create analytical solutions and products across four key sectors: biotechnology, production, laboratory services and consumer education. Over the past five years, Lewis has additionally focused on cannabis breeding and the optimization of a broad range of secondary metabolic pathways within the plant. Selective breeding has been used for thousands of years to create better agricultural crops. Recent advances in the human understanding of genomics have led to breakthroughs in our ability to hack plant genomes to create better and better plants. The analogic relationship between computer programming paradigms and the central dogma of molecular biology are very uncanny and even justify the use of the word “hacking” when describing the selective breeding and administration of tailormade drugs to humans. Whether deleting genes or add genes, techniques have been developed that can modify the plant source code, this development can turn off or turn on programs in the plant that ultimately change the final chemistry of cannabis plants. The final chemistry of the plant can, therefore, be tailor-made to hack individual human metabolomes by design and to fix ‘buggy’ humans or human behaviors.