Name: Identification of Genetic Variants
Principal Investigators: Dr. Ronen Loebstein, Dr. Itai Gur-Arie, Prof. Dani Berkovich and Dr. Yoram Plotsky
Partner: A major medical academic center in Israel
Growing worldwide acceptance of medical cannabis as an effective treatment for a diverse number of diseases has raised a number of medical and regulatory difficulties that require solutions for medical cannabis to attain even greater acceptance as a safe and effective treatment. Current research is focused on determining an optimal personal dosage and identifying patients who potentially may suffer mental side effects caused by medical cannabis. Dosage determination is an important problem due to wide variability among patients regarding the metabolism of a variety of cannabinoids, resulting in a trial and error approach to dosing. Similarly, genetic factors determine the propensity for medical cannabis to inflict differing mental side effects. Comprehensive research protocols have been developed in line with industry best practice to provide clinical data to address the aforementioned issues.
This project is engaged with developing the tool enabling an efficient response for two specific difficulties:
A. Determining the correct personal dosage for every patient based upon his/her
genetic background.
B. Identification of potential patients that are susceptible to mental side effects due to medical cannabis treatment, based upon their genetic background.