How many times have you bought cannabis from someone and was told the strain, only to find out it was not even close to the actual one named? But with the cannabis industry booming strain identification is getting serious. Identifying the strain isn't based on look and smell, rather the strain is determined by genetics on a molecular level.
Medicinal Genomics is creating a repository of cannabis genomes which are stored on the Bitcoin blockchain. The company hopes that its efforts will standardize strain nomenclature so that customers always know what they're getting, while also defending the intellectual property rights of those who breed new strains of weed.
Medicinal Genomics is the only method designed for and validated on cannabis flower, extracts, and a variety of infused products. They test for impurities such as pesticides to keep your bud safe to consume and within state regulations.
Their labs are also offering point of grow genetic testing, which allows hemp and cannabis cultivators to install an in-house laboratory that can be used to screen plants for genetic traits and fungal infection, while they are still in the seedling tray.
Early screening can be used to prevent costly infestations and it provides early male detection saving you time and effort!
What sets their labs apart from others is they offer their customers the ability to sequence the genome of their cannabis plants to protect your strain from corporations and competitors, and optimize your growing and breeding operations.
When the first patent for a strain of weed was filed at the US Patent Office, Medicinal Genomics saw an opportunity: it could assuage the fallout from the looming legal battle over strain ownership by allowing customers to register their strains on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Once testing identifies the unique structure of a strain, a file is created documenting the unique properties of that strain and then runs that file through a cryptographic hash algorithm which scrambles the file's information and produces a random string of numbers and letters known as a hashsum, or fingerprint, for the file.
This hashsum representing the file which contains the strain genotype is then tacked on to a Bitcoin transaction (the Bitcoin protocol allows for small amounts of information to be added to a transaction).
This bitcoin transaction is a publicly accessible time-stamped record claiming their ownership of the strain, which will provide the creator IP rights for that strain.
Medicinal Genomics currently has about 1000 strains registered on the blockchain, approximately 420 of which are publicly accessible through the company's genomic repository, KannaPedia.
"The Bitcoin blockchain has been going since 2009 and it's security is in its proof of work," said Kevin McKernan, Medicinal Genomics' Chief Science Officer and a member of the Human Genome Project's R&D team. "If you're dealing with customers' intellectual property and you're putting it in some side chain that you're supporting, if your network goes down and you don't manage that well, then you've let them all down."
Although Medicinal Genomics can give you ownership to a strain, that will hold up in court, the company says this project is more about purity and authenticity of the medicine that so many people depend on.
Written by @Haileyscomet
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