Clean Screen THC SPE and NIDA study into THC Tolerance

In the area of forensic toxicology, the effect of drugs such as Cannabis on the psychomotor skills of humans is a question faced by many testifying analysts. In order to offer an interpretation, analysts rely not only on their own findings, but on data obtained and published from sources of the highest integrity. The toxicology laboratories at NIDA (The National Institute on Drug Abuse) are acclaimed as one of the worlds centers of excellence when it comes to the study of THC and its metabolites and human performance. At NIDA, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, analysts employed UCT Inc. Solid Phase Extraction (SPE) columns for extracting THC and the related metabolites (THC-OH, and THC-COOH) from plasma samples.

This was demonstrated in a recently published report "Tolerance to Effects of High-Dose Oral D9-Tetrahydrocannabinol and Plasma Cannabinoid Concentrations in Male Daily Cannabis Smokers" in Journal of Analytical Toxicology by David A.Gorelick et al (from the team of Dr. Marilyn Huestis). This group used UCTs ZSTHC020 SPE column to study the plasma concentrations of these compounds after high dose ingestions. The Clean Screen THC sorbent has also been employed by many forensic toxicology laboratories around the globe when clean extractions, high recoveries and high reproducibility are desired.

UCT's world-class QuEChERS

UCT QuEChERS products are favored by private and government labs on 6 continents.  With our large selection of high quality products and capability to customize UCT QuEChERS products are constantly in high demand.  In addition, all of our QuEChERS products are supported by our superior technical team.

QuEChERS was originally developed by Anastassiades and Lehotay, et al. in 2003, for the extraction and analysis of moderately polar to non-polar pesticides from fruits and vegetables.  At the request of the USDA, UCT became the first commercial producer of QuEChERS kits.  Since then, QuEChERS has been expanded to include the extraction of a huge variety of analytes from nearly every agricultural commodity.
As the scope of QuEChERS has expanded, so has the range of QuEChERS products and applications offered by UCT.  The most novel of our developments is ChloroFiltr®.  ChloroFiltr® is used in the dSPE clean-up step to remove chlorophyll from the QuEChERS extract.  Without ChloroFiltr®, analysts would be forced to use graphitized carbon black (GCB) which also removes planar pesticides.  ChloroFiltr® only removes chlorophyll without removing pesticides.  A second product unique to UCT is the QuICK QuEChERS Push-Thru cartridge.  The cartridge contains magnesium sulfate anhydrous and PSA.  Recoveries are comparable to the traditional dSPE product, but extracts are remarkably cleaner.  With the use of a disposable syringe to “push” the QuEChERS extract through the cartridge, QuICK QuEChERS is much faster than dSPE and a centrifuge is not required.