5 Questions for Canada's Rock Star of Plant Research, Dr. Mike Dixon;
Dr. MIke Dixon formed the Space and Advanced Life Support Agriculture (SALSA) program at the University of Guelph. This program currently represents Canada’s main contribution to the international space science objectives in biological life support and collaborates with NASA, Canadian Space Agency and European Space Agency.
Q 1: What does Mike like?
Dr. Mike Dixon: What do I like…? Well, Cadillacs, ancient scotch, curious students, teaching, always asking what if, and challenging the limits of what’s possible with medicinal plant research. That’s a start.
Q 2: Tell us about your first research experience with medicinal plants.
Dr. Mike Dixon: It’s 1974 and I’m a plant biology undergrad at Mount Allison University, and I’m behind the president's residence doing what had to be one of the first legal projects on cannabis in Canada. The local RCMP’s crime lab even approved it. It just wasn’t being researched then, though Imagine the head start we could’ve had, though. Forty years later, I’m giving a conference paper on our space research and it catches the ear of former ABcann Medicinals ’ CEO Ken Clement. He asks questions and one thing leads to another…
Q 3: Why is the CMPHR so important?
Dr. Mike Dixon: Because it’s the wild west out there. There’s no standard for production of medicinal plants, particularly cannabinoids. The phyto-pharmaceutical sector, of which cannabis is part, provides a significant opportunity for the application of our controlled environment technologies to produce medicines-like the production of cancer drugs from tobacco plants. This is important stuff that improves life.
Q 4: What will the CMPHR mean to the future of medicinal plant research?
Dr. Mike Dixon: Everything. Cannabis has been recreationally legal for not even a year and already there’s a vaping epidemic that's puzzling the Centers for Disease Control. We have no research on consumption, especially at that strength. So now we have a serious public health concern. We need the highest calibre cannabis research on everything from production to clinical trials. And we need it now. There is scant quality research on cannabis. Stigma can attach to research too, you know. You see the same in tobacco research, but even there we’re investigating its beneficial applications for cancer care. Now that medicinal plant research is fully legitimized, it needs a significant validating research home, a comprehensive hub for the highest quality international medical plant research.
Q 5: Why is UofG OAC in the right place for an International Centre for Medicinal Plant Research?
Dr. Mike Dixon: A centre like ours must be housed at a major research institution with all the pieces of the puzzle-and I mean all-so that we apply the finest research infrastructure to develop production strategies that yield standardized medicines. The OAC at the University of Guelph is just that place. We do everything-horticultural, food and animal science, pest management, grow food in space, even. We can be the world’s destination for medicinal research. We should be leading this-worldwide. We have the best knowledge, technology, and talent to take on this challenge. It’s ours to lose.
Next steps to advancing our centre:
Build a dedicated closed-environment research space designed for the multi-disciplinary research and production of medicinal plants Expand our critical mass of researchers, engineers, and scientists. Acquire advanced research technologies in support of the highest quality plant research
Builders. Entrepreneurs. Innovators.
We seek partners of understanding and resolve to support us. Join us today so that we keep our advanced research proprietary technology here for good - the greatest good.
Paul Klosler
Ontario Agricultural College | University of Guelph Johnston Hall | 50 Stone Rd E | Guelph, ON | N1G 2W1 Cel: 226-979-3801 | pklosler@uoguelph.ca
50 Stone Rd E, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Our Partners
