Q: How did you come to start Scout Scientific?
A: My first position was at Supelco, Inc., in State College, PA, where I was making new phases for HPLC columns. I then moved to Greenville, NC, to work for Metrics, Inc., a contract analytical testing laboratory. I went from being an analytical chemist to a principal scientist in 16 years, working with many small and large pharmaceutical companies. In late 2019, the site had layoffs and I was unfortunately part of that unlucky group. However, I was prepared and immediately started my own company, called Scout Scientific. Starting the company wasn’t difficult; trying to get it off the ground during a worldwide pandemic was.
Q: Please tell us a bit about what you’ll be sharing with our audience during Outsource! Week.
A: My talk is about this early journey into medical mushroom analysis: I want to present some background on this testing to other chemists to maybe get their interest in the industry. About three years ago, I was contacted by a startup and asked if I could test their medicinal mushroom sample and help them optimize their extraction process. I didn’t know anything about medicinal mushrooms at the time, but the more I investigated the request and learned about these mushrooms the more interested I became in their analysis.
Q: What do we need to know about medicinal mushroom research?
A: The public is increasingly consuming medicinal mushrooms as dietary supplements, which have little to no testing involved. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of these products listed online and sold in many major retailers. Functional mushrooms are complex natural products and come with many analytical testing challenges. It’s important to try and determine what we don’t know about these products and then set out to find the answers systematically. At this point, all I’m trying to do is introduce the subject and bring some background to the discussion, so we have a starting point.
Q: What has been a highlight of working in the medicinal mushroom industry?
A: While the research and development of analytical methods will always be my passion in the laboratory, my favorite part of this work so far has been interacting with the many, many startups and established medicinal mushroom companies. Generally, they care deeply about their products and most have expressed concerns about their safety for the customers. I only learn more about the medicinal mushroom industry with each interaction.
Check out this speaker and many others during Outsource! Week.
