The physician portrayed by Will Smith in the upcoming football film “Concussion” has been named to the scientific advisory board of Kannalife Sciences, which has been developing marijuana-based products to treat concussions and other head injuries.
Dr. Bennet Omalu is slated to be on Kannalife’s board through 2016. He will oversee clinical tracking protocols for a study into a product that would treat concussions using cannabinoids as an active pharmaceutical ingredient, the Associated Press reported.
He pioneered the discovery and research into chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, the concussion-related disease that has been found in the brains of several former NFL players during autopsies.
Kannalife holds a patent on using “cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants” and has an exclusive license with the National Institutes of Health to commercialize the patent.
The company is headquartered in New York, where a medical marijuana program is scheduled to launch on Jan. 1, but conducts research in Doylestown, Penn, where cannabis is illegal. Kannalife is an investment portfolio company of Medical Marijuana Inc.
