Dr. Brian Vanden Heuvel, Biology
This project enables an inter-departmental, multi-faculty collaborative workflow that builds on 18 months of previous achievements by the principal investigator and co-principal investigators and established infrastructure through previous ICR funding. We believe that it is time to extend our work to applied projects.
Specifically, this proposal asks: 1) Can industrial hemp be used as a remediation tool for metals and metalloids from soil and municipal sewage sludge?; 2) Can cannabinoid extraction methods developed in previous ICR projects be scaled up to industrial volumes?; 3) Can waste products from industrial hemp production (stems/leaves) be a reliable source of important biopolymers?; and 4) Can the recently sequenced genomes for industrial hemp be a framework for continued research into what genes are turned on and off during different growth stages, affecting important traits like disease resistance, drought intolerance, yield, specific concentrations of CBCs, THC, or other secondary chemicals?