Alisha Holloway has been deep in the world of cannabis genetics research for nearly a decade.
With a strong background in genetics, Holloway has spent most of her career figuring out how genes influence various traits in humans, other organisms, and now, cannabis. She was honored for her cannabis research at the Green Market Report Women in Cannabis Awards in New York last month.
At Phylos, where she serves as chief scientific officer, Holloway leads a diverse and skilled team of researchers, breeders, and growers who are working to create standardized, seed-grown cannabis plants that have consistent smells and potency.
She told Green Market Report, “We are developing cannabis that can be grown from seeds. When you plant 100 seeds, all those plants look the same. They’re uniform and consistent and give you the same smells and potency. It’s quite different from what is currently done, which is growing cannabis from clones.”
Holloway’s interest in cannabis research started about 10 years ago when she realized that she could make a big impact on the industry by using her knowledge of genetics.
“I thought that would be a place where I could make a difference in the industry, to try to bring some clarity to what folks were growing, comparing plants to each other and understanding whether they were similar or different, and then trying to understand at a deeper level what the genetic basis of different cannabis traits, like different cannabinoids and smells would be,” she recalled.
One of the most important examples of Holloway’s impact is her team’s work on THCV with Peoples Science. By identifying the genes responsible for THCV production, they were able to select plants with higher levels of this rare cannabinoid, she said.
“THCV is one of the first ones that we’ve worked on extensively, and we’ve increased it from about 4% by weight in our early plants to 20% in our latest plants,” she said.
Halloway said a recently completed clinical trial comparing THCV and THC showed that the combination of these two cannabinoids reduces the tiredness and increased appetite that are commonly associated with THC alone.
Prior to her role at Phylos, Alisha held an assistant professor appointment at UC San Francisco School of Medicine, where she was the founding director of the Gladstone Institutes Bioinformatics Core Facility. Such a resume, coupled with a PhD focused on molecular evolution at the University of Texas in Austin, has helped equip her for the work now. She has been issued two patents and authored 44 peer-reviewed publications.
In that same spirit of collaboration and knowledge sharing, Alisha also ensures that the discoveries made by her team at Phylos are shared with academic research institutions, such as Cornell University and Oregon State University, an open approach that encourages further research.
The post Green Market Report Women in Cannabis Awards: Alisha Holloway snags top research trophy appeared first on Green Market Report.
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