Today, we spent the morning assisting Sean, one of the scientists, in the Integrated Lab Solutions area of the clinic. Sean gave us a quick introduction to high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) and tandem mass spectroscopy, two methods employed by the equipment in the lab. HPLC separates and then determines the identities and concentrations of the components of a substance by comparing the retention times (time needed to detect molecule) and peak heights detected with those of known molecules. Tandem mass spectroscopy ionizes a sample, breaks those ions down into fragments, and then detects and identifies specific product ions. We used these techniques to analyze seven components of hemp, including the cannabinoids CBD, THC, CBDA, and THCA, thus ensuring that the hemp products contained acceptable levels of each substance. We helped Sean prepare samples of dried hemp flower and CBD oil to analyze in the HPLC and tandem mass spectroscopy machines by pipetting different amounts of each substance into small vials and diluting them with isopropanol.
After lunch, we conducted further research on HPLC and tandem mass spectroscopy independently while waiting for the results of the sample analysis. We went more in-depth to solidify our understandings of the two methods, learning about the different types of HPLC (normal phase and reversed phase) and its detection methods (UV absorption, fluorescence, etc.), along with the stages and applications of tandem mass spectroscopy.
