My Journey analyzing the plant I love
Finding my footing
As an avid cannabis enthusiast since college, I’ve always been curious about the inner workings of weed. One of the main reasons I began smoking was because of its sedative effects. I had trouble sleeping in college. Maybe it was homesickness, or it could have been the consistent anxiety from school. Studying at the U of A science and engineering library until nightfall was the norm for me. Then, inevitably, worrying if I’m going to pass my O-Chem exam the next morning seemed to be a constant as well. It was either that or another course that made me slightly regret majoring in Microbiology and minoring in Chemistry. That was, without a doubt, the most stressed my 20-year-old self had been in my entire life, to that point.
Cannabis was always calming for me. I’d get home, and decompress by going on a rant about my day, with my loyal audience being my entomologist roommate. Then we’d switch roles and he’d tell me about his day. Finally, to unwind, we’d roll a near-perfect joint and watch The Sopranos on DVDs we rented from Casa Video. It was like a reward for all the hard work I had done that day; sort of like a nice cold pint of beer or a warm, relaxing bath at the end of the day, it pulled all the built-up tension and stress out of me. The point I’m trying to make is that I’ve loved weed for ages. So much so that when I became an analytical scientist for Earth’s Healing in 2019, I grabbed the proverbial bull by the horns and established a thorough game plan to implement my knowledge and skill set to help in any area of the company that I could. Investigating, experimenting, and finding answers to questions is what I’m all about.
Hitting my stride
When I first began at Earth’s Healing, I was a bit nervous, but the opportunity excited me more than anything. To be able to build a lab and test cannabis using cutting-edge instrumentation was the dream I never believed would become a reality. In academia, cannabis is an uncommonly rare drug to study. I had never investigated this plant in an academic or professional setting. If I could tell my 20-year-old self that this is now my profession, that younger me would have laughed in disbelief. Yet, it felt as if I was supposed to do this. I always wanted to be a scientist, ever since I was a kid. I had experience working in other labs, performing all sorts of duties and roles, but experimenting with cannabis was special. Every technique I acquired along my journey seemed to prepare me specifically for the tasks I was about to take on. The stars seemed to align for me.
With haste, I began acquiring the necessary materials, piece by piece, studying the most recent literature and scientific publications on the analytical chemistry and microbiology of cannabis. Experimenting and researching multiple methods and techniques, until I honed the skills I previously acquired to dissect other compounds and organisms until I became successful in validating my methods for cannabis. Thankfully, I had experience using the instrumentation needed to quantify multiple analytes within cannabis.
Intro to Instruments
The HPLC, or High Performance Liquid Chromatograph, is the instrument commonly used to quantify cannabinoids. Cannabinoids you’ve probably heard of, like THC and CBD (Read our blog “What are Cannabinoids”). The HPLC is the instrument in the laboratory that we get the most miles out of. This is because in our industry, producing the most potent plant is necessary for biological and financial progression. We have used the HPLC extensively for phenotype hunting as well as quality control/quality assurance. I have personally run thousands of samples through the HPLC to this point in my career, and I am confident in saying I am a bit of an expert with this instrument. We typically test every week to compare our in-house tests with the 3rd party testing facilities to make sure they are accurate. Our HPLC is manufactured by Shimadzu Scientific Instruments.
GC-MS or Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer is the “chef’s kiss” to the analytical laboratory. The GC-MS is the most sensitive and accurate form of analysis in the lab. The mass spectrometer in itself is the gold standard when it comes to detection methods. The GC-MS is used to test our cannabis flower and extracts for terpenes and residual solvents, solely for our extracts. The GC-MS is the most intricate piece of instrumentation in the lab; it is used to test VOCs, or volatile organic compounds. It is used in many ways; one way it’s utilized in science is to test air quality. Much like the HPLC, I have run thousands of samples through this instrument, and I am quite experienced with this analytical instrument. GC-MS has so much more versatility than HPLC. In the software for the GC-MS, we have a NIST-Wiley library, which grants us the ability to use a search tool to detect any analyte in our mass spec analysis. Which means, if I find something I’m not familiar with, the library will tell me what that mystery analyte is. It is an extremely useful tool. Just like our HPLC, our GC-MS is manufactured by Shimadzu Scientific Instruments.
Microbiology is my first love. However, in my professional career, I’ve strayed more to the chemistry side. When I can show my expertise in microbiology, I take a lot of pride in whatever I am tasked to do. RPA or recombinase polymerase amplification is a technique used to detect certain pathogens. In cannabis, we use this technique to detect a viroid called Hop Latent. This viroid is a small, circular, single-stranded RNA viroid that infects cannabis. This viroid causes “dudding” symptoms in cannabis (i.e., stunted growth, brittle leaves, poor cannabinoid and terpene expression, and lower flower yields). The “Amplifire” RPA, manufactured by Agdia, is an integral tool in the laboratory. We have screened thousands of plants in the greenhouse, just to make sure the viroid is not in our midst and infecting our healthy plants. I am happy to say we have a wonderful track record in keeping our greenhouse free of this easily transmissible pathogen.
Microscopy is a big part of microbiology, and since micro was my first love, I am well-versed in using a microscope. In cannabis, using a microscope is useful to view the cannabis plant at a deeper level. Viewing trichomes is a very informative technique I use in the lab. Trichomes are the chemical factories of the cannabis plant; they provide everything the cannabis enthusiast is interested in, the cannabinoids and terpenes (for more information about trichomes, read our “What Are Terpenes” blog). To view these trichomes on each cannabis strain, we use a Dino-Lite microscope. This microscope is the perfect working distance (distance between the lens and the specimen surface) to view the trichomes on the flower. To see the density and the structure of the trichomes on a specific strain gives us an idea of how it will test. It also gives us an idea of how our extracts will behave in the extraction lab and what type of extracts will be created from our cannabis flower. Trichomes are such an interesting part of what we do, so interesting that we are taking up a research project to publish our findings about trichomes. This is a bit of what the microscope is capable of:
We have many tools and instruments in the lab that help us sample prep or normalize our sample, so we can successfully analyze each matrix (i.e., edibles, flower, extracts, topicals). Sample prep is a large part of analytical science; preparing your sample is just as important as placing your sample into the instruments and having them work their magic. We have a balance manufactured by Shimadzu that has automatic doors and an ionizer, which negates the static electricity that can interfere with the weight the balance displays. The balance is probably our most important piece of instrumentation in the lab. If the weight is incorrect than the analysis will be incorrect, this is because I input all of the values from the balance into the software for the instruments.
The forecast
Being an analytical scientist is very important to me. It allows me to utilize the skills I’ve acquired from the University of Arizona and in the industry and apply them in this setting. Researching cannabis is a unique opportunity that I never take for granted. What I am able to do for this company is something that a lot of academic institutions aren’t able to do, due to the illegality of cannabis at the federal level. The goals for this lab are always evolving. Researching and publishing research regarding cannabis is the main goal. We have a wide array of tools and a great community of scientists and colleagues with whom we can collaborate at the state and national levels. Grant research is also a huge goal for the laboratory, as well, being commissioned by the NIH or other entities to research cannabis is something that will help us propel the knowledge base for cannabis globally. Being able to expose all the wonderful things we do in the lab is a necessity to push forward the understanding of cannabis in our local community and at the national level as well. We are going to show the community all that we do in the analytical laboratory; to allow people to gain an understanding of how the products they’ve come to love are examined. This is going to be an amazing journey we are going to go on together, and I hope we can learn things together. If you haven’t yet, follow my page on Instagram at eh_labs. We will be creating content for each blog post, so we can show the actual work we’ve done to get to this point. I hope you enjoy the blogs and the visual content. If you want to connect, email me at [email protected].
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