Cannabidiol and Cancer: Adventures from Cell Biology

Students in cell biology lab used resources from the Cell Biology Education Consortium to design semester-long research projects in their course-based lab. For this project, students chose to test the effects of commercially available cannabidiol (CBD) oil on viability and metastatic potential of breast cancer, Ewing’s sarcoma and melanoma cell lines in vitro. MTT and transwell migration assays were performed to test and compare the effects of a medically reputable CBD oil, a hemp elixir from the Forbes top twenty list of CBD products, and a CBD-containing drink from a local gas station on these cell lines. Data demonstrate a dose-dependent effect on both cell viability and migration in all cell lines with the medically-reputable oil. The hemp elixir and CBD drink were only tested with breast cancer cells. The hemp elixir also demonstrated dose-dependent effects on both viability and migration, while the CBD product from the local gas station had no effect on either of these hallmark characteristics of cancer cells. These results suggest that all CBD products may not have equivalent medicinal value and that some over-the-counter CBD products are effective in decreasing cell viability and the metastatic potential of various cancer cell lines in a dose-dependent manner, which prompts the need for more intensive studies on the topic.https://digitalcommons.jsu.edu/ce_jsustudentsymp_2020/1014/thumbnail.jp