Thank you very much for spending some time for this interview. At first, could you outline the research and let us know what discovery and achievement have been made so far?

My pleasure – I appreciate the platform because I love to talk about what the research team has accomplished! We have a grant from the National Institute of Justice that supports evaluating the broad implications of vaping on public safety issues. The research has also supported public health education.

Early on, my team had to figure out the fundamentals of vaping – from the device construction to e-liquid formulations – to then postulate and monitor the marketplace for changes that allow for the inhalation of drugs other than nicotine. So, to the best of my knowledge, my team was the first to scholastically publish on the e-cig device evolution in a manuscript about an overdose from Blue Lotus using a dripping device (Poklis, J. L et al. 2017a).

We were also out front about the quality of nicotine e-liquid formulations (Poklis, J. L. et al. 2017b; Peace, M. R et al. 2018; Holt, A. K. et al. 2021a) in the United States, before there were any federal regulations. We’ve been vocal about the chemicals used in the formulations that are considered Generally Regarded As Safe (GRAS) to eat, but not to inhale (Holt, A. K., et al. 2021b). And, our most recent research is in evaluating the impact of vaping ethanol on roadside impairments evaluations, the breath tests, and on the formation of ethanol biomarkers. We have received dozens of emails and calls about people claiming they don’t drink but are failing ethanol-based drug tests. So, we are developing a unified method to evaluate 6 ethanol biomarkers in blood, urine, and oral fluid. We also know that people charged with DUI are claiming that they were vaping. They claim that the roadside impairment tests are skewed. According to our clinical study, this is likely not the case. The manuscript describing this study is under review.

We also do a lot of work in the cannabis space, developing methods for analyzing these new THC isomers and derivatives (Holt, A. K., et al. 2022a; Holt, A. K., et al. 2022b) that are poisoning thousands of people nationwide. And, we have several other projects that have significant public health implications, that I am particularly proud of, not the least of which is a study to evaluate whether or not physicians can predict if a newborn child is at risk of neonatal abstinence syndrome (Gesseck, A. M., et al. 2021).

So, we have a lot going on – and I have a great team who is passionate about these questions.

How are Shimadzu instruments helping you in your research?

My lab is predominantly a Shimadzu lab. We have 2 GCMSs,a GC-FID, and an LC-MS/MS. So, we use every one of them for different kinds of analyses. We have developed a really robust untargeted method on the GC-MSs, we do some quantitation work on the GC-MS, but really use the LC-MS/MS for that work because of its sensitivity and ease of sample prep. And, of course, we use the GC-FID for the volatiles analysis to identify ethanol and other solvents in products and in tissue. I’m really fortunate to have be able to explore all these issues in-house.

Could you tell us why you chose Shimadzu as your partner when you started this project?

Well, when I first started evaluating which instruments to purchase, I evaluated all the major manufacturers. We all know there are pros and cons to each platform, but I needed a relationship. And, while this may seem strange, a corporate philosophy and code of ethics mean something to me. When I learned that the corporate mission was embedded all the way to their employee evaluations, this felt important in helping me do what I needed to do in my personal mission to support public safety and health. When I started working with Shimadzu, I really felt like they were approaching my needs like a partner would. And, they worked hard with me to get the necessary functionality that enabled me to dig deeper while not poking giant holes in my very shallow pockets, for which I am deeply grateful. Admittedly, my lab operates fairly independently, so, when I need some help and ask, I really need it and there’s usually a multi-faceted tactic to get me online again or help me in developing a method. I also have a lot of student-researchers and they call for a lot of help – and I always appreciate that my students are always taken care of – that the service at Shimadzu is done in a teaching spirit.