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The Commission provided information on testing updates intended to increase product safety and transparency.

New Jersey’s Cannabis Regulatory Commission Updates Testing Guidelines

Listen to a Noid Factoid from Julie Kowalski, Principal Consultant with JA Kowalski Science Support.

Noid Factoid from Episode 25

Robert Thomas investigates the costs that go into heavy metal testing through an informative exercise that debunks claims that a larger panel would significantly increase costs.

Expanding the Panel of Heavy Metals in Cannabis Consumer Products Beyond the Big Four: Understanding the Cost Difference

Accredited by A2LA, the scope of accreditation to ISO/IEC 17043 now includes six cannabis and hemp oil proficiency testing programs.

AOAC INTERNATIONAL’s ISO 17043 Accreditation Expanded to Cannabis and Hemp Oil Proficiency Testing

The second part of this column will take a look at specific examples in the public domain of elemental contamination of cannabis consumer products, which shows that other elements are worthy of consideration and should be a part of the regulatory framework.

Understanding Sources  of Heavy Metals in Cannabis and Hemp Consumer Products, Part II: Is the Fractured Nature of State-based Regulations Ignoring the Evidence?

In this interview, Patrick Bird, Senior Manager of Scientific Affairs at bioMérieux, discusses what attendees will learn from his presentation “Innovative Method Development to Meet the Needs for the Cannabis Industry” in the Analytical Track, plus the latest developments in cannabis microbiology.

pre-conference workshop, “Microbiology 101: So Easy Anyone Can Do It

,” and the author of the Feature Article, “

Let’s Talk About It: Cannabis Remediation

Check out the video, read the transcript below, and 

register here for Cannabis Science Conference Spring 2024

! See you in Kansas City, Missouri May 7–9, 2024!

Patrick Bird explains more about optimizing method development, good manufacturing practices, and cannabis genomics

Cannabis Science Conference Spring 2024: Interview with Patrick Bird, Analytical Track

Read more about the latest in cannabis microbiology:

What will you be covering in your presentation “Innovative Method Development to Meet the Needs for the Cannabis Industry” in the Analytical Track?

: Over the last couple of years, I've really heard from members of industry that they'll attend conferences and it's a lecture on maybe an education topic, or it's maybe something that is promoting a certain type of technology or organization, and they really wanted to hear a little bit more about what is actually being done from a data-driven standpoint. I hear how this method is great, but what can you actually show me on that? So one of the things that I really wanted to emphasize in my presentation was how an organization such as bioMérieux will develop a method, but we develop that method through a series of tests and how we collect that data, how we analyze it, and how we determine what the best approach is. So in this particular session, we're going to be talking about taking a yeast and mold method that is already certified for use in industry, and how we can optimize that method through some method development to get it to what customers actually need as far as more efficient turnaround time.

We've not done this in the past. So one thing that's very interesting about this is, I know a lot of method developers are hesitant to present raw data into the public atmosphere. And we decided to take that challenge head on. So we're really going to put some data out there and some figures that show why we go in certain directions.

What solutions do you hope to see in cannabis manufacturing and contamination in the near future?

: This is such a great question. And there's two separate pathways I'd like to mention that I'd love to see. And one is slowly gaining traction; we start to hear more and more about good manufacturing practices (GMP), good cultivation practices, and how the industry continues to adopt these principles and modify them to this industry. So a direct adoption from, say, the food or dietary supplement industry probably isn't applicable. There needs to be some changes, because the cultivation practices are different, and how the products are produced, or get to a point where maybe they're extracted and ready to be put into a beverage or food, are different. But they're key, they really are the first fundamental step for consumer safety when we talk about microbial contaminants, but also other contaminants too. The more investment we have in that good manufacturing, good cultivation, I think is really important for the industry.

On a separate note, and this is more on the technology side and we probably are a couple years away from it, but how can advanced molecular techniques—whole genome sequencing (WGS), meta genomics—how can they play a role to really improve both cultivation and in a better understanding of the microbial microflora of cannabis? There has been research done on this where they've done some whole genome sequencing, some meta genomics to understand what organisms may be present on the cannabis plant. So we know that, but understanding it better from a regional to a national respect would be crucial and helping to develop maybe regulations that are more applicable to certain regions based on the organisms that are there, but it would give us a better understanding of, which organisms are present, but are these organisms actually pathogenic to humans? Do they contain any virulence genes, the resistance genes of certain sanitation chemicals or pesticides that can be utilized in this industry? So this is something that the industry, that a lot of microbiologists have come into the food industry, it's slowly being adopted. There's a lot of hesitancy with data—what does it actually mean to you, and understanding and translating the bioinformatics portion of it to actual applicability? We're starting to get there, though. And we're seeing how case studies of understanding what spoilage and pathogen organisms are present and how organizations can better mitigate them and the improvement that they see and say their economic yields, their revenues, and products that have longer shelf lives. So this has really been beneficial to the food industry. As the cannabis industry starts to adopt GMP processes and get better cultivation, they'll be able to monitor when they're outside of their own set specifications. And that's going to lead to this technology immersion with WGS and meta genomics and bioinformatics and a better understanding of what's the causative agent of that and how they can rectify it to really have a higher yield or more productive cycles of growth. So it's coming in this industry. The question is, who will be the early adopters and how soon will they adopt?

Videos

Hear what Patrick Bird says about optimizing method development, good manufacturing practices, and cannabis genomics. 

In this interview, Patrick Bird, Senior Manager of Scientific Affairs at bioMérieux, discusses the topics covered in the pre-conference workshop, “Microbiology 101: So Easy Anyone Can Do It.” He is also a 

 and the author of the Feature Article, “

The workshop is designed for individuals (laboratory personnel, cultivators, regulators, and auditors) interested in or currently performing microbiology testing. The information provided and the ‘hands-on’ learning will help participants develop and reassess their own facilities microbiological processes.

Learn more from Patrick Bird about the hands-on microbiology workshop at the upcoming Cannabis Science Conference Spring 2024

Microbiology 101: A Preconference Workshop at Cannabis Science Conference Spring 2024

Read more about what to expect in the workshop and conference:

What will be covered in the upcoming workshop “Microbiology 101: So Easy Anyone Can Do It”?

: We're really, truly blessed with this workshop; we have a great panel of trainers from some really strong organizations. They have a really in depth background on Microbiology and Molecular Biology, so we titled this session as Microbiology 101 to really capture everything that's done under the microbiology umbrella. But that does include a molecular analysis too. Most people are common with PCR, but we are branching out a little bit to talk about loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) technology, which is another type of molecular biology.

So we really have a two-track session that we're going to be discussing. And this is going to be going down to the basics of both education and hands-on learning. So we have a cultural microbiology track, which will be done from the trainers from Method Testing Lab, Anthony Repay, and April Schumacher, from Neogen. They're going to focus on basics of setting up samples, how you set up an area properly, disinfecting and cleaning—aseptic technique is part of that process—to actually preparing sample plates, and then how you would actually interpret those results. So everything that a lab analyst would do in a given day, they're going to cover from that initial step to the final step.

In the other track that we have, it's going to be a molecular biology, one-on-one type session. So we're going to introduce the participants to PCR technology and other molecular approaches, how they work, and then we're going to talk about how you would set up a PCR lab and actually go through some demos where you'll actually pipette some samples, and how to interpret software results. And the key thing with this workshop is that we really wanted to emphasize participant interaction. So each group is going to have the opportunity to take some fun quizzes, participate in some of the demos, and there will be some small prizes that we give out to the participants who are active and are really going with the program.

What are you excited to learn at the Cannabis Science Conference?

: So one of the things I love about this conference is that there's the different tracks. So you have the analytical, the compliance, the medical, the cultivation track. So there's a little bit of everything. Now I am a lab nerd. That's how I came up in the industry, so I really like to get into some of the analytical findings. I'm also always intrigued when we start to have regulatory groups come and present. They have the authority in the states to keep labs in operation, make decisions that really impact the public health component of what we all try to do on a day-to-day basis. Matthew Ward from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is presenting on how labs can do internal validations. And this is really key for us as a method development organization. Because what we do is a very small scale validation in the terms of the methods overall use. We usually will take a small subset of matrices, and then we evaluate those as part of the certification process. But end using labs really have a wide variety of matrices that they have to test. So that next phase in how labs do it is really something that differs from state to state and from lab to lab. So hearing how a regulatory agency approaches that is something that I'm very interested to hear about.

In addition to that, the New York State Office of Cannabis Management, is going to be presenting on some yeast and mold data that they've collected from outdoor grows. I find this interesting because a majority of the testing that I've been involved with has been indoor cultivation. And to see how their data from an outdoor facility may or may not impact the decisions they make going forward in their state to me, it's very interesting.

There was one other topic that that I wanted to at least mention on here, because I find it interesting. So one of my colleagues at our microbiology workshop, Anthony Repay from Method Testing Lab, is going to be speaking to how they've incorporated a surfactant into some of their testing. So this is interesting because we don't typically use surfactants on the microbiology side, unless it's a very specific, say, matrix combination. I've seen more so done in the food industry and very niche fields. I haven't seen it applied yet in the cannabis industry, so I'm intrigued to hear how they've applied it, what they've done to validate that, and what data he's able to present during the meeting.

Learn more from Patrick Bird about the hands-on microbiology workshop at the upcoming Cannabis Science Conference Spring 2024.

ChemHistory Business Director Alex Hoggan shares how he started his testing laboratory, insights into his role, plus his advice and hopes for the future of the cannabis industry.

For more details on Canna Boot Camp, read the 

ChemHistory Business Director Alex Hoggan shares how he started his testing laboratory, insights into his role, plus advice and hopes for the cannabis industry

Canna Boot Camp Spring 2023 with Alex Hoggan

Canna Boot Camp Spring 2023 was held at ChemHistory, a premier quality control testing laboratory in Milwaukie, Oregon. In this onsite interview, we speak with Business Director Alex Hoggan.

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