Noid Factoid from Episode 20

On this month’s Noid Knowledge podcast episode, we are joined by Dr. Iain Oswald, a principal research scientist at Abstrax Tech Inc., a cannabis research and development company located in Southern California. Dr. Oswald (aka Dr. Dank) discusses the discovery of a new class of volatile sulfur compounds responsible for the characteristic gassy, skunky aroma produced by cannabis. He also discusses the recent paper published by Iain and his team highlighting their discovery of an additional range of cannabis sulfur compounds that contribute to the tropical notes in cannabis aromas. Below, Dr. Oswald shares a quick Noid Factoid with us!

Transcription: Hi everyone, my name is Iain Oswald and I am a research scientist at Abstrax Tech, a cannabis research and technology company located in Southern California, and my Noid Factoid is did you know that some of the varieties and of cannabis produce skatole, a compound that gives poop it's somewhat unpleasant odor. But found in the right concentrations, such as in some cannabis varieties like GMO Chemdog, it actually comes across more as chemical or savory, so enjoy those varieties if you still can.

Read a preview of Dr. Oswald's answer to how he first got started in the cannabis industry:

"I went to university to study chemistry, at which point I was doing undergraduate research in organic chemistry and inorganic chemistry which I really enjoyed from there I did my PhD in solid-state chemistry which is kind of the cousin to solid-state physics just more materials oriented so totally not related to cannabis yet. I then went to do a postdoc at Colorado State University where I was working on inorganic organic hybrid perovskites, which are these next generation solar cell materials. While I was there, you know Colorado is well known for its cannabis culture. I was able to kind of dabble while I was there and my buddy, TJ, who is my boss here at Abstrax Tech gave me a call in 2019 and mentioned that there was a position open at Abstrax for basically leading the R&D team on investigating cannabis. Kind of in an area that's been understudied and so it sounded really interesting and as a chemist because cannabis has been so highly regulated that it was a really interesting topic because it's been so understudied from that regard. I saw it as kind of a really unique opportunity to do something that other people have not been able to. So I told TJ sure this sounds like a lot of fun, I like the idea of working at a startup as well the fast-paced nature. I think kind of suits my creative thinking and way of kind of going about things. I moved out to California in 2019 and we got started looking into cannabis when I arrived. We invested in some instrumentation, and you know it's kind of you know it's gone a lot further I feel than we kind of thought it would when we started but it's all in good ways. I think that we've really helped and expand the knowledge of you know the general public educating them as well as ourselves."

Listen to the full episode to hear more: https://www.cannabissciencetech.com/view/ep-20-researching-cannabis-terpenes-versus-volatile-sulfur-compounds