Enzymatic THC patent granted by USPTO

[greenstoner]

Hi All,
figured some of you might appreciate the new patent we've been granted - it describes the methods and utilities for generating THC using the enzymes from cannabis in other organisms like bacteria or even tobacco. Anyone interested is welcome to check out our site GREENSTONE...ELEGANT ENVIRONMENTAL EMERALD or for more detailed information Enzymatic THC - Industrial Production for Agricultural Needs There's a lot of information on the subject, and so we've also begun a database here at http://database.greenstonepatent.com - anyone with articles that they think might fit in to this database is more than welcome to post a link - thank you all and best regards,
The Greenstone Team

greenstoner Reviewed by greenstoner on 05-29-2009. Enzymatic THC patent granted by USPTO Hi All, figured some of you might appreciate the new patent we've been granted - it describes the methods and utilities for generating THC using the enzymes from cannabis in other organisms like bacteria or even tobacco. Anyone interested is welcome to check out our site GREENSTONE...ELEGANT ENVIRONMENTAL EMERALD or for more detailed information Enzymatic THC - Industrial Production for Agricultural Needs There's a lot of information on the subject, and so we've also begun a database here at Rating: 5

[greenstoner]

btw - in case it isn't clear - we're following this thread and are very much interested in the opinions of those more technically inclined... understand that generating THC biosynthetically is far from a newbie activity

[rayj115]

Hi Greenstoner,

Hope all is going well with the patent.

I have been reviewing your references myself and there's a few gaps in my understanding that I wanted to clarify with you, if possible.

1. Geranyl pyrophosphate: geranyl transferase. Fellermeier 98 seems to mostly be a Michaelis-Menten style kinetics study. I cannot find any molecular genetic information on this enzyme, or any nucleotide sequences of it. Do you have a nucleotide sequence for this enzyme? If not, how do you accomplish the olivetolic acid + GPP -> CBGA prenylation biosynthetically?

2. Olivetolic acid synthase. Raharjo, 2004 attempted to assemble the enzyme based off a homologous nucleotide sequence. But they failed to do so, and instead the enzyme exhibited chalcone synthase activity and did not yield olivetolic acid. What enzyme are you using to yield the olivetolic acid? Is the nucleotide sequence for it available?

Thanks for reading. Best of luck on your patent!

[greenstoner]

ha! that's great, you're the first person in 6 years to pick up on the fact that indeed there is work remaining. what we did was patent the process based on the evidence of fellermeier & zenk, as well as raharjo 2003 that did find olivetol in a protein sample = although neither went ahead to sequencing their work... fairly trivial stuff....

for the record i consider the world of biotech patents to be a subject of extremely thin ice, patenting DNA or any natural biological reaction seems almost heretical... however that said it's what the big boys at pfizer and monsanto do, and we're simply working with the system...

the patent itself is a bit rude in that it patents stuff that isn't even entirely discovered yet.... again, a somewhat rude approach to the patent world, again, i didn't make the rules, just playing with them.

this is a common approach used to try and get a few pieces of the puzzle locked up to then attract investors & complete the work... hopefully as laws become more realistic we'll be able to continue the research and at the very least stimulate some other folks to get to work on this.

[Glugglug]

I do not support your study and I don't believe many others here would either if they took a moment to see what your study is.IMHO this is an attempt to create a unique plant that produces THC and is patentable.

Once a drug company has a patent on a plant that isn't cannabis that produces THC,they will make the case that cannabis should remain illegal because they can now produce the active ingredient with out cannabis changing its legal classification.So they end up with the only legal path to THC($$$) and cannabis remains illegal .

We have a plant that produces THC already and there are methods that can extract nearly pure THC already from that plant(budder),no genetic alteration needed.