Dr. André Boulet                                                         Mohannad Mahmoud                                            

In Collaboration with the CEO André Boulet of the Company Devonian Health Inc., Mohannad Mahmoud, a Ph.D student of Dr. Dr. Suha Jabaji received a total of $160,000 Mitacs Accelerate Fellowship to do his Ph.D project.  This fellowship is for four years start September1, 2019.  The title of his project is: Botanical extracts and essential oils as the new antimicrobials against microbial contaminants and diseases of Cannabis and a summary is displayed below:

Abstract: The majority of license producers (LP) Cannabis producers have witnessed evidence of powdery mildew and grey mold and bud rot diseases. Plant yields and ultimate profitability can be severely undermined by these diseases. Medicinal plants produce essential oils in the form of secondary metabolites. The essential oils have the potential to be used as antibacterial, antifungal compounds. The proposed research will screen a wide range of medicinal plants and essential oils for their potency against fungal diseases and mycotoxigenic organisms that affect Cannabis production and products. The intern under the supervision of Professor S. Jabaji, McGill, and Dr. A. Boulet will screen a wide range of botanicals using High throughput assays, determine the MIC concentrations of the top performing plant extract that can suppress PM and GM and mycotoxin –producing organisms, conduct phytotoxicity assays and metabolic profiling of the botanicals, and test the botanicals against PM and GM diseases under in vivo controlled conditions. The outcome of this research will confirm that using fungicidal botanical plants to control fungi can be as effective as synthetic fungicides. Thus, managing Cannabis fungal diseases using plant secondary metabolites in commercial Cannabis production is beneficial to Devonian as it aligns with their overarching objective of commercialization novel agro-ecologically new bioproducts.