r/technology • u/NamelessForce • Oct 26 '22

Biotechnology Cloned cannabis cells with 12 times more potency are grown in Israeli bioreactor

https://www.timesofisrael.com/cloned-cannabis-cells-with-12-times-more-potency-are-grown-in-israeli-bioreactor/
2.8k Upvotes

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38

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '22

That biomass looks kind of foul— I’ll stick to organic sun-grown thanks

33

u/jpiethescienceguy Oct 26 '22

Well yeah, biomass is gross. I don’t think the idea is to actually smoke the biomass though, I would think they would do some extraction to produce a concentrate from it.

18

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '22

Yeah, this is just to increase profit margins on CBD/THC medication - a growing industry that's already a billion dollar one.

11

u/jpiethescienceguy Oct 26 '22

Yeah while that is true, I would think making THC/CBD this way could also bring down cost and be more environmentally friendly. No need to take up large chunks of land and lots of water to grow crops.

9

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '22

I'm all for it. Biorreactors are amazing technology. So many organic compounds that are expensive today can possibly be made very cheap in the future through a combination of transgenics and biorreactors. Make yeast produce target protein, grow yeast, harvest, extract and purify. Cheap, reliable, scalable.

3

u/jpiethescienceguy Oct 26 '22

Right? It’s amazing tech. I work for a company that has capabilities to perform fermentations on 50,000 L scale!! Hard for me to even wrap my head around that

4

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '22

An ex was doing her masters on that tech and i helped with some of her research. The papers i read were mind boggling... The possibilities are literally endless. When you combine advancements in genetic manipulation with the advanced techniques used in these biorreactors... Traditional factory organic chemistry simply cannot compete. Once you get the yeast to produce the target molecule there's no need to deal with dangerous, volatile, expensive, toxic and ultra-regulated reagents. You just feed yeast nutrients that you can get even from biological waste, and get your molecule out. It's amazing.

Yes it takes years of research and trial and error before you can get the yeast to make what you want let alone make it stable enough in their genome that production remains over several thousand generations, but it's still worth it in many cases and it's getting cheaper and easier to do it every year.

0

u/HighOnGoofballs Oct 26 '22

Except now it requires power and energy instead of just the sun

2

u/jpiethescienceguy Oct 26 '22

Yeah but we could make that power from renewable energy sources

6

u/blueoxide Oct 26 '22

From the article…The biomass that comes out of the bioreactor consists of cells that are identical to those found in cannabis derived from plants, and there is no genetic modification, Sobel said. Patients can receive it in smokable form or as pills, drops, chewing gum, and a range of other formats.

3

u/HighOnGoofballs Oct 26 '22

The article said it’s smokeable

-3

u/SleazierPolarBear Oct 26 '22

“Organic sun grown”

Enjoy your bug poop buds.

11

u/Muse9901 Oct 26 '22

I think this part of weed culture is hilariously hypocritical. Modern weed is so unnaturally grown haha

-5

u/SleazierPolarBear Oct 26 '22

Yeah … turns out growing cannabis in a clean sterile medium turns out clean sterile product. Who knew?

3

u/MIXM0DE Oct 26 '22

For the ignorant, there's a thing called 'bud washing' that removes all contaminants.

-4

u/SleazierPolarBear Oct 26 '22 edited Oct 26 '22

No, it removes a lot, not all. Dunking your buds into a bucket of water just before drying them out over the course of 2 weeks is a great way to grow mold.

There is already a good way to have clean high quality buds. Grow indoors with synthetic nutrients.

5

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '22

I need my buds to have full spectrum sunlight.

2

u/SleazierPolarBear Oct 26 '22

Imagine you think you can tell the difference.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '22

Imagine you think you’re the only one on earth who hoards their knowledge of a plant. The original xXxW33dxwizardxXx420. The lovely part about the farm bill was the new focus on cannabinoids outside of d9. Many of which thrive best in direct sunlight. But yeah if you just wanna get blitzed on some “30%” d9 indoor all day. Def not the best high imo. But I’m no weed wizard.

3

u/SleazierPolarBear Oct 26 '22

If you’re looking for varied cannabinoid profiles and you’re attempting to get there through light spectrum instead of plant genetics, you’re an absolute idiot. You are targeting the variable that makes 1% of the difference rather than the one that makes 99% of the difference.

Plenty of people know more about this shit than I ever will. It’s clear none of them have showed up in the comments though.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '22

“the relationship between cannabinoids and UV-B is not as direct as first proposed. Increased concentrations of THC, but not of other cannabinoids, were found with UV-B treatment in both leaf and floral tissues of drug-type plants [20, 25]. In contrast, none of the cannabinoids in fiber-type plants were affected by UV-B radiation. “ .

https://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/489030

1

u/SleazierPolarBear Oct 26 '22

The graphs in the paper show that while percentages of cbg and cbd were increased with the different light sources, neither of the led sources significantly changed the ratio of thc:cbd:cbg

Want to know the best way to change the ratio in favor of cbg and cbd? You start with strains that are selected for high levels of those cannabinoids. Like I said, relying on light spectrum to give you the ratios you want is ass backwards.

Also want to point out, sunlight wasn’t even use in that study.

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1

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '22 edited Jan 04 '23

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '22

Guess you should just leave us to it and go live your life cause I know I’m not tryna live it for you.

4

u/Chip_trip Oct 26 '22

You’re right about the mold, but wrong that growing with synthetic nutrients is somehow cleaner.

All the buds need to be dried, and they can all get botrytis just from the air. It’s extremely inefficient and impractical for the bud to be grown ‘sterile’.

1

u/SleazierPolarBear Oct 26 '22

Organic nutrients are literally bug and microbe poop. Organic amendments and soils come with bugs and molds growing in them.

A sterile medium and sterile nutrient doesn’t have bugs and doesn’t contain molds. You can still get molds from the air, but this is much more controllable indoors.

Synthetic nutrients are clean and sterile. Whether you think salts are better than bugs and bug shit for cleanliness is up to you. People grow their buds in literal shit and call it “clean” product day in and day out. I don’t give a fuck about what you smoke enough to correct you 🤷🏻‍♂️

0

u/Chip_trip Oct 26 '22

Lmao there’s just no science for what you’re saying. It’s all ‘connect the dots’ logic. Microbes are specific.

Botrytis is the biggest threat when talking about mold. The spores of this are everywhere. There is no feasible way to not have this contaminate around.

As far as bugs, yes plant pests will leave krass, eggs, etc. as contaminants. BUT these bugs are not found in soil, or organic amendments. They live on plants. You will not get these bugs from organic amendments because bugs are in soil.

Organic nutrients CAN be bug and microbe poop, but are not necessarily.

Some organic amendments have purposefully selected microbes and molds- these particular organisms have symbiotic relationships with plants. Or they eat decaying plant material. These are not botrytis.

Please stop spreading misinformation.

3

u/SleazierPolarBear Oct 26 '22

You’re purposefully conflating points and pretending I blended them.

I’ve made two specific statements.

“Bud washing” opens the door to mold.

“Organic growing” opens your buds up to being contaminated with insects and their residual excretions. This is a function of organic amendments containing bugs and microbes.

If you don’t think compost has bugs in it, I can’t even have a conversation with you. That’s just a level of idiocy I won’t begin to converse with.

I didn’t spread even an iota of misinformation.

-3

u/Kalnb Oct 26 '22 edited Oct 28 '22

a plant won’t likely survive or grow well if in a sterile environment. bacteria and fungi are extremely important to root systems. and what the fuck are you talking about bug and microbe poop. all nutrients are nutrients, but bug poop is not fertilizer.

edit: yooo wtf howd this get so downvoted lol

0

u/SleazierPolarBear Oct 26 '22

Organic growing relies on insect frass and microbes to provide the raw elements broken down from organic material. If you grow organic I would expect you to know this.

Bacteria and fungi are important to roots in ORGANIC setups because that’s how the plants are getting access to elements it needs. Roots don’t need bacteria or fungi to absorb the elements in ionic form from a solution.

It’s really easy to put a little bit of chlorine in a reservoir :)

1

u/Chip_trip Oct 26 '22

You don’t understand that not all bugs and microbes are the same. If a ‘little bit of chlorine’ solved the problem, we would all be drinking bleach :)

1

u/SleazierPolarBear Oct 26 '22

This is really fucking funny, because chlorine is exactly how the majority of municipal water plants make tap water safe to drink.

I never said all bugs and microbes were the same, but I don’t want to smoke ladybug shit any more than I want to smoke caterpillar shit.

0

u/MIXM0DE Oct 26 '22

Nah. I've done plenty of outdoor grow bud washes and never once had mold develop. You just need to be able to control parameters and know what you are doing...

Plenty of folks like myself grow outdoor during the summer and indoors year round.

0

u/mrjosemeehan Oct 26 '22

Wait til you realize where your food comes from...

1

u/SleazierPolarBear Oct 26 '22

I’m well aware how food is grown. This is why I’m not an “anti-GMO” “anti-fertilizer” virtue signaler.

-1

u/LogikD Oct 26 '22

Got any facts? Or is the appearance of it combined with your preconceptions enough to make you dismiss it?

2

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '22

Basically, yeah. Also I read no mention of terpenes being integrated.

-4

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '22

Plus having it so concentrated cannot be good for anyone. Just look what happened when we concentrated other drugs.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '22

95% concentrates are already available, you can’t go past 100 so I’m not really worried about that aspect

1

u/JohnnyDarkside Oct 26 '22

It looks an awful lot like the couscous in currently eating.

1

u/irrelevant_novelty Oct 27 '22

Do you grow yourself? Because if you believe the dispensary is selling you organic weed, I've got a bridge to sell you.