Melanie Kelly
Professor of Pharmacology, Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, Anesthesia, Perioperative Medicine and Pain Management, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia; Chief Scientific Officer for Tetra Biopharma Inc., Ontario, Canada
If you weren’t working in the cannabis industry, what would you be doing?
I really like translational science and medicine and embrace the challenge of thinking about the big picture and how a specific discovery at the bench can be developed across multiple paths to a clinical or useful product. So, in short, if I was not working in my current position, I would still be engaged in discovery science and likely founding another start-up company.
Serendipitous career moment?
In 1999, a respected clinical colleague, Professor Orlando Hung, asked me to collaborate with his research team in developing and validating a novel inhaled delivery system for THC that did not require heating or burning and could be used to treat patients with post-surgical pain. This redirected my research into a new field of science: the endocannabinoid system; and provided me with over two decades of fascinating and rewarding research opportunities and collaborations.
Personal mission?
To bring evidence-based cannabinoid research to the clinic and successfully receive marketing approval for safe and effective cannabinoid-based drugs to alleviate hard-to-treat human disease.
