Comment · Wed, October 20, 2021 · ND Owner
Reddit AMA | In-House Lab Edition
Original post in this thread
NootropicsDepotGuru · 77 points
​
We are very excited to announce that Nootropics Depot will be conducting its first-ever Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), which is a semi-live Q&A session, about our In-House Analytical Laboratory and we would love for you to join us! See below for full details and get your question(s) ready. We hope to see you there!
WHEN
STARTS: October 20th | 9am AZ MST
ENDS: October 22nd | 9am AZ M…
What they were answering
JohnTorque · 1 points
What is the product that took the most effort from your team to develop? Why?
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
Okay, now product number 3 that we have put a lot of work into, but has not yet been release... That one is a liquid culture extract of lion's mane mycelium standardized to erinacine-A. This is one that we have been working on for pretty much 5 years. The big issue with this one is lack of reference standards and lack of validated analytical methods to ID and quantify erinacines and hericenones. I've ranted many times on the topic over the years.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/comments/b30mw2/why_doesnt_nootropics_depot_and_real_mushrooms/
https://www.reddit.com/r/NootropicsDepot/comments/kkumb9/accuracy_of_betaglucan_analysis/ghbvril/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/comments/dm9yn6/is_it_true_nd_lions_mane_is_no_good_because_its/
These are complex problems that take a while to solve. If there are no validated reference standards for something, what are your options? You have to go create them from scratch. This is what we have been doing for the past 2 years now. I built out a mushroom lab here in Tempe, and we brought one of the world's foremost lion's mane researchers onboard... then the pandemic hit. Then the travel restrictions hit. He was literally supposed to have arrived to work in the lab I built March 2020. We all know what happened then. He has been unable to enter the country this entire time, so we have been working as much as we can remotely with some pieced together equipment over in the EU. Luckily the travel restrictions should be lifting next month, so he will FINALLY be able to get out here to the lab I built to finalize this lion's mane project. We have been working this whole time, but there is only so much you can do if you are not in front of the machines needed to isolate and concentrate these actives. We have learned a lot over the past 2 years, though. So we have kept things moving forward. We've also made erinacine standards in small amounts in the makeshift lab in the EU, and built our own ID and assay methods. We have used these assay methods to test the products on the market claiming to contain erinacines and hericenones. Would you be surprised to hear we have found none in any of the products? It's actually pretty complex to cause the mycelium to make these compounds, which is why they are not really found in high quantities. Now that we will be able to get our mushroom lab fully online in a month or so, we will be moving quickly to finally develop and bring out a retail product based on lion's mane mycelium. However, the time, effort, and money that has gone into it to this point would be one reason I would say this is a product that has been very difficult to develop.