Analytical Cannabis 

Analytical Cannabis Online Expo 2020

The quantitation of all of the cannabis contributed materials allows one to produce an overall complete chemical profile of any cannabis-related product.  The IROA Cannabis TruQuant approach introduces hundreds of Cannabis isotopic internal standards into every sample so they may all be quantified.  The quantitation will be exact for the major compounds and relative for minor compounds.  In addition, in order to assure correct compound identification a Long-term Reference Sample is provided that serves both verifiable chemical identification, and a complete QA/QC for instrument performance. 

Dr Chris Beecher presented this fascinating talk at the Analytical Cannabis Online Expo back in April 2020.

Accurate Quantitation of all Cannabinoids in a Single Analysis Using an IROA-based Method

Manual cannabis sample preparation can be both time-consuming and a source of experimental variability. The overall data quality can be seriously impacted by sample prep and therefore automation can provide a number of advantages, including a reduction in handling errors, an increase in throughput as well as reduction in consumable costs. This talk will cover how common workflows such as potency, pesticide residue, mycotoxin and microbial analysis could be automated, and compliance improved with seed to sale sample traceability.

Dr Toby Astill, Senior Business Development Leader for Cannabis & Hemp Markets of PerkinElmer presented his talk in April at the Analytical Cannabis Online Expo 2020, 

Adding High Capacity Automation to Sample Prep & Analytical Workflows for Cannabis Testing Protocols

In the last two years there have been several high-profile illnesses in cannabis users, notably the e-cigarette, or vaping, product-use associated lung injury (EVALI), and heavy metal poisoning in California and Michigan. While these are undeniably deserving of attention, they have led to a focus on chemical contaminants and causes of illness, rather than microbial ones. With an estimated combined market of over $10B in retail sales this year, it’s not a matter of if, but when will the cannabis industry have its first major microbial or food-borne outbreak and product recall. Are we as an industry doing enough to catch it before it happens? Are we even looking for the right things? If processors and growers are already complaining about high testing costs and being shut down by state governments for selling products that have failed previous testing, how do we convince the industry to embrace new testing requirements?

Josh Smith, CEO & Chief Scientist at Premium CBD Labs presented his talk back in April at the Analytical Cannabis Online Expo 2020.

Cannabis and Microbial Pathogens: Recreational, Medical or Hemp, are we doing enough?

Heavy metals content in cannabis material has been a recent concern across multiple news platforms. Sources are claiming that the metals content in vaping products are leading to unknown illnesses. However, one aspect of the issue which has been overlooked is that though heavy metals may in fact be the culprit, there is a possibility that they are not present in the raw cannabis material and instead are leached by-products from the packaging materials. Leachability tests should be conducted on all packaging materials, including but not limited to, pre-rolls, vape cartridges, syringes, tincture bottles, and edible containers. In order to do this, analytical procedures for heavy metal leachability tests in a variety of matrices have been established.<br/><br/>Jini Curry, Laboratory Director of Modern Canna Labs, presented her exciting talk back in April 2020 at the Analytical Cannabis Online Expo.

Heavy Metals Leachability in Cannabis Packaging Materials

Determining the moisture content of cannabis and products derived from it is critical throughout the entire manufacturing process - from harvesting to packaging of the finished product.  Water content influences a variety of factors including – product weight, active ingredient concentrations (THC), shelf life, susceptibility to contamination, flavor profiles, product consistency and more.  Excess moisture can subject cannabis and related products to a higher risk of microbial contamination, including bacteria, fungi, and various forms of yeast.  Contamination due to elevated moisture levels can thus prematurely shorten the shelf life of cannabis products. Consequently, an accurate analysis of moisture content in cannabis ensures product safety, as well as compliance with numerous state and local regulations. 
Various methods can be used to determine the moisture content. Common methods are Karl Fischer titration and the loss-on-drying method, which can be very time-consuming. 
In this study, we compare the classical oven (loss-on-drying) method with the infrared method, in which two moisture analyzers, Mark3 HP and MA160 from Sartorius, are tested with regard to analysis times and result precision as a function of both sample quantity and initial moisture content. The analysis of the results can assist those looking to optimize moisture determination in their cannabis products with regards to operating efficiencies and sample consumption. With the growing legality of cannabis and related products, the need for moisture-content analysis will surely increase. As a result, cannabis industry professionals will require easy, accurate, and fast methods of moisture analysis that can handle increasing levels of sample throughput.

Wallace Harvey, Regional Business Manager - Lab Weighing of Sartorius presented his talk back in April at the Analytical Cannabis Online Expo 2020.


Managing Influences on Moisture Content in Cannabis for Optimization of Sample Throughput & Accuracy

Analytical test results are widely accepted as evidence that a material was tested for specified components and/or properties.  Typically reported as Certificate of Analyses, consumers use these reports to make educated and informed decisions.  Test results are almost always derived from critical data calculations and processing that are not always considered, given the ease of statistical processing software.  This session will review several of the more significant background statistical processes that provide credibility to the decision rules driven by test results.  First, the coveted “R2” correlation coefficient can be misleading and should not be used as the sole criterion to determine unknown concentrations.  Second, measurement uncertainty, which is far different from experimental bias, provides the safety net around final test results.   Confidence in experimental data relies upon these values which are often overlooked in third-party testing laboratories.

This keynote was presented by Dr Susan Audino at the Analytical Cannabis Online Expo 2020.

Numbers that Drive Test Results

The cannabis lab testing space has faced several challenges over the last year– a volatile regulatory environment, lack of standard methodologies, the vaping epidemic, accusations of inconsistency and unscrupulous ethical practices as well as tremendous pressure on pricing as testing becomes increasingly commoditized. These challenges will be detailed and discussed in this presentation. In California, the proposed consolidation of the three cannabis agencies into a single cannabis regulatory authority may present an opportunity to provide input on current testing regulations. California testing regulations have been used template for other states, therefore, successful changes have a chance of being adopted across the nation. Despite some valiant efforts, it has become clear that the creation of standard analytical methodologies will take more time and effort due to the number of tests and matrices involved. Many labs still view their methods as trade secrets or IP which makes them wary of sharing too many details. A more practical pathway to standardization would be in creating specific requirements for the cannabis industry and defining validation parameters clearly. In addition to discussing the challenges in the cannabis testing industry, this presentation will also cover the opportunities for improvement and standardization. 

This talk was presented by Dr Swetha Kaul at the Analytical Cannabis Online Expo 2020.

The Regulatory Landscape and Creating a Cannabis Standard

Similar to ongoing investigations undertaken by the CDC, CannaSafe has tested the vaporized contents of vape cartridges and monitored the performance of the accompanying hardware in an effort to shed light on some of the unknowns related to what actually enters a consumer’s lungs. This testing was examined alongside the regulatory testing required under California Proposition 643 (approved at the ballot in 2016, in effect since January 1, 2018), which tests the final packaged units of products as sold/purchased in licensed cannabis dispensaries. The goal of this study is to bring information to the table about the state of vape products as they are inhaled. <br/><br/>Ini Afia, Executive Lab Director of CannaSafe presented his talk back in April at the Analytical Cannabis Online Expo 2020.

Vapes: What are you actually inhaling?

The recent flood of genomics data for cannabis has allowed us to start asking some very detailed questions about what's going on under the hood with this plant.  I will talk about using RNA expression data across multiple cannabis varieties to explore the surprisingly varied gene families underlying oil production, and the regulatory pathways that organize this work.  Just looking at the cannabinoid pathway it is clear that there is substantially more complexity than we might have suspected.  The bottom line is that there is an enormous amount of biology happening here that is on the one hand clearly relevant to the traits we care about, and on the other hand almost completely unexplored.

Dr Keith Allen, Director of Bioinformatics at Front Range Biosciences presented his talk back in April at the Analytical Cannabis Online Expo 2020.

Accurate Quantitation of all Cannabinoids in a Single Analysis Using an IROA-based Method

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Analytical Cannabis

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June 15, 2020

Analytical Cannabis Online Expo 2020

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