Call
blood issue call
Nov 25, 2025 08:39 PM
44600-WB(F) Blank Whole Blood - Frozen
We are doing matched deuterated internal standard (ISTD) calibration. The problem is the ISTD compound has a suppressed response in the blood matrix relative to the unlabeled THC. This leads to an apparent ISTD recovery of ~ 200% is real samples – which causes the reported THC concentration to ½ of the true value.
I’ve never seen a situation like this – ISTD behaving significantly differently than the unlabeled drug. Our method cleanup is pretty extensive (protein crash and tuned Solid Phase Extraction). The issue is intermittent. We tried keeping the blood frozen until analysis. We tried spinning the blood prior to spiking. Some batches work just fine, but then a batch extraction will fail without obvious cause.
David Verbrugge - November 25
VIEW RECORDING - 35 mins (No highlights): https://fathom.video/share/Ussxf7H2JkAt1ZXdZnw6V6HWx9HmWfmr
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0:00 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
Hang on.
0:00 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
Let me put the camera on here. So I've got Scott Hurrell with me. He's a chemist on the bench. Hey, Scott.
0:11 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
Well, I also brought an unexpected guest, so I've got Nicole from our production team. So a little bit more of a technical knowledge on our end. Oh, wow.
0:21 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
I've got this note that says I'm muted because I'm not. But anyway. Yeah, I hear you just fine.
0:27 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
Okay, good. I'm amazed that this many years after COVID, almost every meeting I have starts with some level of technical support. Like, can you hear me now? My camera's not working. Yeah, I know.
0:37 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
know, and, you know, in the health department, we're just, you know, our department is obsessed with these cameras. They bought cameras for everybody. And, yeah, I mean, they're on there. So, you know, the thing that I don't get to do by camera, though, is court. You know, they still won't let me do court by, you know, by remote. It's annoying. So... So I spent the week out of town last week doing two trials. So that's kind of why we're here. So, I mean, you know, your guys' products have been working pretty darn good for us. I mean, you know, we're using the control blood, and we've had, you know, reasonable success with it. I think we had, didn't we have, we had a, you know, so it's only our marijuana panel where we're seeing. This, this artifact showing up.
1:33 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
Can you give us a little more insight into, like, exactly what's going on? So you make the product, you're making your own cows, you're then refreezing it, and it's out of, like, some are working, some are not. How are we doing that, Scott? Oh, you mean, okay.
1:47 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
Yeah, so the, for the, the, we're using your, your frozen blood, right? So we bought the frozen blood lot. Well, we get the blood in, we pour it into. Smaller Containers, and then we freeze it. And the containers are 15 mil polypropylene, you know, we call, you know, we used to call them falcon tubes because that was the brand, but they're the blue top, you know, polypropylene tubes. And then, so we'll pull one out when we need a new tube and thaw it up and then use that and then it stays in the fridge. What's our, what's our blood volume that we're using when we do this? 100 mite. mite. In the, the cows and QC. So a tube lasts quite a while, a 15 ml tube lasts quite a while. Two weeks. And so we're doing, we're doing spike blood calibrators. So we use that, that blood, spike it with our, you know, our, our drug mix. It's marijuana gets run on its own extraction protocol because it's. So. So. That lipophilic nature, it needs a little bit different isolation. So it's really, you know, a much smaller amount of drugs, you know, in that mix.
3:14 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
But there's marijuana and other drugs in the same products and testing the other drugs. Not in that, not in that one. So just marijuana is in Just marijuana.
3:26 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
So our big drug panel, we're not having any issue. Yeah, we only with the marijuana. We use the same blood base for calibration of our large drug panel as well. So our large drug panel, it's called the Tier 1 Driving Under the Influence of Drugs. So it, you know, there's well over 30 compounds in there. It's the, you we call it the SOB panel, Stimobenzol.
3:56 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
So the product that you're struggling with is just marijuana. Yeah, just the marijuana.
4:03 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
It's not your cannabis material. We're buying THC, Hydroxy-THC, Carboxy-THC, and then we're doing completely deuterated matched quant. Hopefully you've got some frame of reference for the words that I'm using. A little bit, yeah.
4:25 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
That's why I have Nicole here, though. She's kind of the brains of her operations. I always tell people, I'm kind of like Charlie Brown when people talk science. Like, I hear keywords. It's like, wah, wah, wah, deuterated standard. Oh, I know what that is, you know. High results. Okay, I know what that is. Yeah, so, you know, it's 100% deuterated match.
4:42 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
You know, things generally work like they're supposed to, like you would expect. I mean, this is LC-MS-MS, so we have to have that isotopic match in there. But for some wacky reason, the deuterated material, only for the cannabinoids. It is getting matrix suppression in the calibrator, and so that demonstrates itself as like 200% recovery on the sample. So when we run a sample, that matrix suppression isn't occurring anymore, and it's only on the deuterated material. I mean, if it were on both, like it's supposed to be, you know, if both things were being affected, the unlabeled, you know, then there would be that autocorrection. I mean, you know, it's undesirable to have a 50% loss, but, you know, it still would be corrected, but it's inconsistent too, right? Yes. Yeah. That's what kind of had me sort of curious.
5:37 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
So like when you're making a sample, does this, like within that same pool, does it sometimes work and it sometimes doesn't work, or either like that batch will never work, but the next batch may work? No.
5:50 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
So what we're finding is, so the previous lot we were using, we didn't have any problems. The lot before that, I think we were having an issue. The same issues. This lot, so I'll thaw a blood tube out, and it works fine for about a week. So I'll get like three batches, I'll do like three batches, and then it'll start failing. And after that, it won't work. So it's, when I first thaw out a blood tube, it works fine. Have you tried thawing the blood tube, making the product, and then aliquoting that into like a day?
6:30 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
Daily use, you know, vial, and refreezing it to try to preserve it?
6:34 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
No, what I've done is actually I pull it out, thaw it out, use it, put it back in the freezer. And it doesn't matter.
6:42 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
It still does it. After about a week to 10 days. We typically steer people away from freeze-thaw cycling. I'd be curious to know how it works if you, instead of the freeze-thaw cycling, you know, did more of like a daily use vial. So you make it, you... Freeze it, and then you're only doing, like, a thaw once. I don't know if that's something you guys might be able to try.
7:06 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
We that to see if that works better. Some nuke tubes.
7:14 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
Yeah, just probably a little lot of what you're saying sounds similar to an issue that we see from time to time, but there's also enough differences that I'm just not, I'm not totally certain. So, kind of from what we see, occasionally, like, a specific lot, for whatever reason, will have some sort of interference for a customer's method. You know, we don't really know what it is, but you send it to somebody and, like, hey, this one drug just isn't working for me. You switch to a different lot, we see that problem go away. Or we send, you know, that lot to another customer who then makes it in-house, and for whatever reason on their method, they don't see that issue. So, you know, sometimes it's just something within that matrix, and we do have a program to kind of get around that. So, we call it a... Matrix Sample. So when you place your order for the bottle of blood, in addition to the bottle, you also request a matrix sample. And what we do is instead of sending you that full bottle of blood, we're first going to send you a little 10 ml sample of it. I'd recommend that you guys try running that as a blank and also try spiking it, you know, use it over a couple of days or a week and like see how it works. Make sure that that lot is performing for you. If everything is good, you give us the thumbs up and we ship you the full bottle. But if you're seeing that same issue, then you reject that sample and we'll send you a new lot until we find one that works for you. But what gives me pause is that it works and then down the road it doesn't work.
8:41 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
But once it stops working, once, you know, once the aliquot stops working, it continues to not work. You know, the aliquot that gets pulled out, right? Maybe that's the way it's happening. So, you know, and we've had this lot for a while. mean, it had been stable. Well, we identified what was going on in the first couple of weeks. Yeah, because you went to a different lot. But I tested it, when we initially got it, I tested it and it worked for, again, like the first 10 days. And then we had a big batch that failed, so I went through and tested different stuff and I pulled out a new lot, or I pulled a new tube out of the freezer, the new tube worked and the old tube failed. And then we go about another 10 days and the same thing happens. And I've retested the old ones a couple times and they just don't work. Once they stop working, they won't work again. So then we're using that material both as a calibrator and we're doing a spiking that. Yes. Yeah, we're liking that for our QC as well, right? Yes. So our QC, you know, the bad thing is your QC comes out perfectly fine because it's matched against the… Has the same problem.
10:11 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
calibrator. Yeah, yeah, it has the same problem. So clearly it's not us, it's… Yeah, right, right.
10:17 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
So, you know, we don't know the source. You know, I haven't done an infusion study or anything, Nicole, if you're familiar with those, is to look for the matrix suppression. But, you know, there's, you know, the method has worked historically. It's just kind of a drag one, something, you know, I mean, it's, you know, a little bit of chemistry witchcraft is going on. We tried a couple of… voodoo with these instruments.
10:46 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
Yeah, you know, we tried a couple of things.
10:50 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
We went ahead, you know, our protein precipitation step is, you know, is reasonably good. Some people, you know, have used a salt addition. And then we tried that just to see if it made a difference. So we used a zinc sulfate, and it didn't make any difference. If anything, it was a little worse. There was more variability in the overall BSC. And then post-precipitation, we're running it through solid phase extraction. So it's a targeted analysis, so there's a cleanup involved. We're not trying to abuse our instrument either. So we've got that, you know, on the front end. You tried spinning the blood before using it once as well, right? Yes. Yeah. I tried that. I tried, yeah, a couple other. Yeah, we were postulating that maybe there's, you know, some minor block material that, you know, is interfering. It doesn't really seem to make any difference, spun or not. I mean, it's not a, you know, it's a little desktop, you know, center. So it's not high power, but, you know, was it 5,000? Yeah, did 5,000 for like 10 minutes. 5,000 RPM on a, you small format rotor. So, you know, it's not a huge amount of RCF on it, but it's what we use to pellet things anyway. So, but yeah, if nothing else, I think, yeah, we just wanted to get it, you know, in front of you guys in case somebody else brings it up. I mean, at least we know, and, and I guess we're going to continue to try, I guess we can try to do that, that microalloc wadding where we take, take some, you know, smaller 2ml tubes or 1ml tubes and then work with that. And then maybe that'll work, you know, I mean, if, if we're doing it, you know, if we're only doing it, you know, thawing it, you know, once, you know, I mean, we'll have to thaw them, of course, in order to do a, you know, the initial suballoc wadding after. 15 ml tubes, but we can give that a shot.
13:04 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
My gut feeling is it's just something in that matrix is causing, you know, that specific lot is causing some interference or some kind of issue. Just the area that gives me pause and kind of what's different than what I typically see is it's usually from the start. The fact that it works for a couple of days and then it stops, it makes it murkier. Like, could it be something with the standard degrading? Could it be, you know, something else that's happening? But typically concentrations don't go up, they go down. It's kind of degrading. It's still the same standard.
13:37 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
So, you know, and it's ion suppression, you know, it's got to be. I mean, you know, that's my, I guess that's my assumption is that it's ion suppression. I suppose we should probably proof that. But, you know, I can't, I can't fathom why adding, you know, three to six deuteriums to, to this was suddenly cause, you know. So a tight binding to the matrix.
14:04 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
I've been at UTAC for 11 years, and Nicole's been around for 10, and I think you've got us both stumped. And I used to do our technical support for several years, so I don't know. Nicole, do you have any kind of questions or thoughts?
14:16 - Nicole Miller
No, I mean, I think that it can be like a complex couple of different things that are going on at the same time that maybe is creating a perfect storm. I kind of think that it probably is something in the matrix with a specific lots. It could also be like the nature of the THC that like for us handling it internally, we don't really handle the deuterated standards too much. But at least for working with THC, like it is a relatively sticky analyte, so that means plastic is going to stick to that. I would look, I mean, for us, like we would look into any changes. So if you mentioned like the Falcon tubes, if those have changed by different suppliers, if anything else has changed, I would look at that too.
14:55 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
But yeah, I think that I think we're running that I mean, that's a good idea. But I think. We're running off from the same lot of tubes. Yeah, because we use those same tubes for our metals chemistry work. So that's the blue caps, is that? Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, the only thing that changes is like the first three batches or four batches. I mean, the internal standard would be plus or minus 20%. Like it's supposed to be. And then it just drops off hard. Yeah. it's going to like 200% after that.
15:29 - Nicole Miller
So it could be two different things kind of going on that makes it seem like maybe the same issue or maybe one causes the other. But if the initial, there is something in the matrix that is suppressing whatever, then it's made worse than by the thaw or the freeze thaw cycle. If something, you know, like a pH is slightly changing, like something is slightly changing within the matrix through that freeze thaw that is just making it worse and worse. I mean, you can slow it down by like what Andrew suggested of keeping it in a freezer and then only thawing as a single time use. And That could slow things down. But I do think that the matrix sample probably is going to be the best option to get ahead of if there is anything in that matrix that could be suppressing.
16:12 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
On the next time we have to make purchase, we'll make sure that we get a pre-test. But we have quite a bit of the material right now. I going to ask, like, how much blood do you have left? You know, I think we just started, basically. Yes, I've been using it a lot. Yeah, stem oaks for a while. Yeah, it works just fine on the stem oaks. We're not, you know, we're not seeing any issues with that. And, you know, and we've, you know, it's not like we haven't seen this with other blood matrices, too. I mean, I have, we've tried a couple of different animal matrices. So, I can't remember what we were doing. Sheep and pig and cattle, we tried all of them. Yeah, yeah. They all had the same issue. the issue. Sheep was... Just not as bad. Yeah. So, you know, fundamentally that tells you that, Dave, you need to go back to the wheelhouse and figure out what's going wrong. I mean, there's something offset with our method, you know. I mean, it worked fine with, you know. So, you know, a little background. I mean, you guys had some trouble sourcing human blood for a year there, and we ended up, that's when we went and, you know. I mean, it always worked, you know, but you had some trouble sourcing it. I don't know. Nobody wanted to stick an arm out, you know, but, you know, but, yeah. So, we had to find somebody else, and I went to a company that's providing blood for research from animals. Their company is Hemostat. And so we tried that result, and that's when we saw this event happening where, you know, with that type of blood. And these were Laked Bloods, so their freeze-thaw, you know, process, they weren't preserved in any unusual way, just the laked blood, EDTA in there. But that also provided the suppression of the internal standard during the quant cycle, leading to an apparent increase of the internal standard when you're running. So we were pretty happy when UTAK had the human blood available again, and we went back to that. But, you it worked fine, you know, on that next lot.
18:38 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
Yeah, fortunately, our supply issues have, you know, pretty much been resolved, and we've consistently been having blood in stock. You know, I always joke, in the world of people willing to sell bodily fluids and not on drugs, it's such a small subset of people. But we have connected with a good supply network, so I think the stockout issue is no longer the problem. Now it's just about getting you guys a blood lot that works. Okay. Okay. Now, you said you still have quite a bit of this left. Is that right? Yeah, we do.
19:03 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
But I think, you know, I mean, it's reasonable for us to try doing that sub-aliquoting before we go any further. I think that might be our best kind of next step.
19:15 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
But let's definitely keep in touch on this because, you know, we want to make sure that you guys stay happy with our product. And, you know, I'd be willing to see if we could work out something like a half-off discount or something to get you guys another lot, where you guys can do the matrix sample or something to keep in disc, you know, keep in testing and then just make sure moving forward, you always request that sample and then you try it out internally. You know, if it's always working for the other drugs, I think it's pretty safe to assume it's going to keep working for them. But if THC has been like a particular issue, I would definitely recommend, you know, spiking some and then, you know, running it over multiple days following your normal protocol, whether that's freeze-thaw or, you know, however it is you guys are doing it.
19:55 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
Yeah, normally we thought out and live in the...
20:03 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
Yeah, I mean, that's our normal.
20:05 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
We normally don't do the free slot. Yeah, I would think, you know, try it that way, but it's historically always worked.
20:12 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
And if we go through a couple of lots of samples and it's still, you know, still having that same issue, I think we're going to need to revisit, you know, what's going on here, because at that point it may not be the blood or it might be something in how we're manufacturing it or, you know, some of these things are just, it's hard to know, like, to put a pinpoint on it. You know, it's just like, yeah, we see the issue, but is it the blood? something else?
20:34 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
There could be a change in the solid phase extraction material, too, you know, I mean, because we are, you know, we are using a fundamentally different cartridge tech for the marijuana, so different company altogether. So marijuana method is using a water's product and the other method is using a farm. is You But, yeah, different chemistry. Always interesting sometimes how those small little changes that you don't think would affect anything can have.
21:13 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
Yeah, there are.
21:15 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
And we kind of started to feel that, you know, during COVID, you know, mean, you know, vendors would change source on material and sometimes things would not work as expected. So, yeah. And over our years, we've seen differences in, like, different materials and stir bars.
21:34 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
I think the amount of time that some of the matrices are left frozen before beginning manufacturing, like, all these little details that you wouldn't think would necessarily affect something on the surface, you know, they add up. But do you guys feel comfortable with that path forward of trying to do a small and then, you know, let's revisit it. If you, you know, if it works, you know, hopefully we can just make use of the current law. You know, use this process for the lot, and the next time we'll do the sample and, you know, ideally get something that's just refrigerating working for you. But if this process doesn't work, you know, I'd appreciate if you'd just reach out and let us know and we'll reconnect and, you know, see if we can do something about getting you another lot and finding something that works for you because, you know, I've been through one of those mock trials and I would hate to be in a stand and especially trying to explain some kind of complicated science issue to a jury who has no idea what a deuterated standard is.
22:28 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
Yeah, we try never to go there, you know, it's on the defense to actually get into the weeds if they want to do it, you know, and I'm willing to make them feel silly if they do that, but, you know, yeah. The one I saw may have just been more intense because it was like a scientist, you know, pretending to be the defense guy, but man, I was sweating for the guy up on stage. You know, the hardest stuff is actually the stuff that happens without the jury present. It's evident. And that's when the, that's when the attorneys really, you know, they, they let their colors show because it's just the attorneys and the judge, you know, and they can be kind of belligerent, you know, I mean, Scott, Scott and I, you know, we had a pretty nice one yesterday. Yeah, it wasn't bad. It wasn't bad, but. There have been a couple. Yeah, but when the, you know, even, you know, when the defense is in front of the jury, I mean, you know, they're going to be polite, you know, I mean, so, so, so it's, it's. It's the prelim stuff that gets exciting, so. But, yeah, yeah, you know, the marijuana is pretty popular up here in Alaska, too. Is it legal? It is, yeah, it's legal. So, and because there's no per se limit in Alaska, we, we run pretty low detection limits for, for the THC we're, we're reporting. You know. I Half a part per billion nanogram per mil, and the carboxy, we only take that one down to five, but yeah, you know, I mean, you know, it's important to have good data. Oh, totally. For the THCs, it's, you know, definitely 35 to 40% of our drive-in cases, so, you know, excluding the alcohol, but, you know.
24:31 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
Not to get too salesy on you guys, but there is also the option of having UTAK take on the manufacturing of that product for you, so if you'd be interested in, you know, getting a quote to have us make calibrators with whatever analytes you choose at your concentrations or QCs, we can also look at that option. And, you know, when we make it, we typically guarantee the performance of the products, so.
24:52 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
Yeah, I might consider that on the QC side, but yeah, right now our… You know, our QCs, we're covering quite a few things, but yeah, I can put together, you know, what we're running as a QC right now and see what that might look like for you guys to do. Sure.
25:14 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
I think we're buying something from UTAK on the QC.
25:19 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
We have the Stemos. Stemos. Yeah, we have the drugs of abuse. You're getting a pain management and a drugs of abuse and blood, and then you're using a couple of our urine controls as well. Yeah, I don't like your guys' marijuana, you know, stock product, I must admit.
25:43 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
What do you not like about it?
25:45 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
When we ran it, it was really variable, so it wasn't behaving very well in our system. Was it vial-to-vial variability or run-to-run within the same bucket?
25:58 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
I don't recall.
25:59 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
It's been quite... We've time since we've used that. We switched to our own spiking, so. Okay. And again, you know, that might point to maybe our method isn't as robust as it could be, but, you know, so, you know, this has given me a lot to think about. Yeah, I would just encourage you guys, you know, anytime you're having a problem with our product, like, please reach out, you know. So, so you're, you're, you're still, I mean, you guys are getting successful, you know, stat runs with your, your blood THC product, or you wouldn't sell it, obviously, right? Yeah, I mean, we're making blood THC for tons of labs as customers.
26:39 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
And, you know, I think, I see a lot of times we do it as a two-part. Is that right, Nicole? I think for stability on some of Yeah, so we'll do that sometimes.
26:47 - Nicole Miller
But for our stock products, mean, it's in freeze-dried form that it's in there as. But yeah, I mean, we're working with it pretty routinely. Yeah, I can't remember which one I had.
26:58 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
I think, I think it might have. It been the volatiles that was a two-part, but yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I say our THC was the freeze drive. It was a freeze drive, yeah. And I can't remember what the problem was, but I know it wasn't working the way that we were anticipating, yeah. Was this maybe like four or five years ago or just more recently?
27:25 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
was a while ago.
27:26 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
Yeah, let me pull up the right spreadsheet for that.
27:32 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
I think, if I'm remembering right, somewhere around that ballpark of four or five years, we had a little flare-up of some THC issues with kind of some reports of like instability or vial-to-vial variation. But I think all of that has been resolved and I don't see any trend in those kinds of reports for the last many years.
27:51 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
It was last purchased in September of 2019. 2019. as always so more 19th November See, that could have been right in the ballpark at the time frame where we were kind of seeing some other issues, but, you know, as far as our data shows, it's smooth sailing right now with THC. Would it be possible to get a tester on that? Do you remember the park number? I was using the low, so it was 40010, and this is serum, so I don't know if you had a whole blood equivalent or if you just had the serum. That part we have actually discontinued, so we no longer offer that in stock products. Well, I think that might have been part of the issue, because we have seen issues, there's a change between the serum and the whole blood. and I haven't revisited your guys' THC products since that period. you. Thank you. Thank you. So with THC, we're seeing a lot of variation lab to lab.
29:04 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
Like there's the different metabolites. There's like Delta-8 and THCA and all of that. So as a stock product, we no longer offer it just because each lab is looking for like different combinations of them now. for sure. If you're, yeah. We do those as customs.
29:18 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
I don't know who would want to. THCA and serum would be kind of odd, I got to say, from a TOC standpoint, because that gets converted immediately on smoking. So, but yeah, people will do what they do. But yeah. It's like, I don't get too involved in why they tested.
29:42 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
just. Yeah, yeah. know, if somebody wants it, you'll give it to them, right?
29:46 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
Yeah, no, we are definitely seeing some of the Delta-8s. Scott just got a positive on the Delta-8 last week. And it was very, very high. We don't, you know, in Alaska, there's less reason for people. We'll be doing that. You know, so all of your THCs now are custom products, though. Not all of them.
30:09 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
Yeah. have, I think it's THC carboxy, is that right, as a stunk? In blood, yeah. But if you wanted like Delta 9 or anything.
30:19 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
Yeah, what we're looking for is Delta 9, you know, Delta 9 across the board, THC, THC carboxy, and 11-hydroxy-THC. Those are the things that we're quanting on routinely right now. We also have thrown CBD in there as well. Nicole, correct me if I'm wrong.
30:42 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
Delta 9 is the one we have a lot of stability issues. Yeah, yeah. So carboxy is usually going to be the most stable.
30:49 - Nicole Miller
Hydroxy is pretty okay, usually. But yeah, just the Delta 9 version is the one, especially in blood, where it's going to have the greatest instability. So that's where you push towards like single-use files, alloys. Yeah, it's that lipificity, you know.
31:07 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
mean, it's protein binding, you know, I'm sure. So, yeah, I haven't been doing the drugs as long as I've been doing other things, but, you know, it's like cut my teeth on PCBs and fish. So, you know, so I'm familiar with the gnarliness of matrix spiking and, you know, somewhat artificial nature. If you let it set for a week, you know, now it's really incorporated into the matrix.
31:38 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
All right.
31:39 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
Well, I think, you know, we'll, yeah, we'll probably just continue to do our own spiking work with the THC because that part's working. But we've got to figure out, you know, where our matrix issue is coming in and we'll try that, that something will be a single use. And that may very well work. I mean, if we're. Like I said, it seems to work for at least three or four times after the initial thaw. When you guys test your marijuana material, are you running it also on LC-MS as well? Yeah, so we send externalists.
32:23 - Nicole Miller
We don't do any testing in-house, so we send to third-party labs, and LC-MS is what it's usually run on.
32:28 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
Okay, all right. Okay, cool. All right, you know, always looking for mice, you know, mousetraps. So, you know, I mean, our method works, but, you know, clearly there's something that's not quite perfect with it. I need to tweak it a little bit. Yeah, tweak it. I will say this is quite a funky issue.
32:46 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
Normally these things are pretty straightforward, and actually like ten minutes before this meeting I was reviewing the email. I was like, you know, I probably ought to invite Nicole. This does seem to be a little more over my head. Yeah, it's weird.
32:57 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
I've, you know, I've, you know. We've used, you know, here at the Public Health Lab, we've always used matrix, deuterated matrix match. That's what, you know, we've been paid to do, and I've never seen a differential isolation with the deuterated material versus the unlabeled material. So, yeah, I suppose if I had time and were more clever, I could write it up as a work note.
33:33 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
Yeah, let's try this out, and then, you know, let me know if it works. That's really good information for us to have, just in customers have similar issues in the future, and if it doesn't work, I say we revisit and kind of figure out, you know, what volumes do you need, and let's get a matrix sample going, and we'll kind of go from there. Okay, sounds good.
33:52 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
Thanks for setting this up, Andrew.
33:55 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
Yeah, really appreciate your time and diving in here. Good to meet you, Nicole.
33:58 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
Yeah, nice to meet you as well. Yeah, if you guys need to, you know, visit Alaska, let us know. mean, you know, we can say, I need a vendor to come up here, you know. Alaska's 100% on our bucket list.
34:14 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
I want to shoot a bear and catch a salmon. That's two things I'm not. You'll have to go with Scott for that. Nicole's a vegetarian, so she might come up for some of the wild I'm not going anywhere near a bear. July for salmon.
34:28 - Verbrugge, David A (DOH)
July for salmon. Okay. And I also hear the mosquitoes are in season then, too, so it sounds great. Depends on the year, they were, yeah, they, yeah, I don't know, it's, everybody's got their bugs.
34:43 - Andrew Hartmann (UTAK Laboratories)
You too. All right, well, you gentlemen, have a great day, and, yeah, let us know. Okay. All right. Thanks. All right. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank