Marijuana Business Magazine July 2019

July 2019 | mjbizdaily.com 87 5 Ready Quality-Control ‘Surrogates’ The laboratory analysts prepare quality-control samples with each batch of samples that are processed to help prove their processes are working each day of testing. Above, a laboratory analyst prepares quality-control samples, which, it’s important to note, are not client samples but “surrogate” samples that mimic client samples. This happens in a biosafety cabinet that is separate from where client samples are first split and weighed. In this step, analysts inoculate control samples with live cultures to create “positive” samples while retaining uninoculated “negative” samples as well. Positive control samples contain cultures of fungal or bacterial contaminants—yeast, mold, E. coli or salmonella; negative control samples do not. These quality-control samples are important, and operators should ask to see the data produced from them if their product samples fail. When tests are completed, positive control samples should test positive and negative tests should test negative if analysts have taken all the appropriate steps and used the correct instrument parameters throughout the process. Lab Testing “These quality-control samples are important, and operators should ask to see the data produced from them if their product samples fail.”