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Interview with “Sherlock” Shurmer, a Chemical Detective
By: Dr. Tracy Farone
Photo Credit: Bryn Shurmer.
Recently I had the privilege of sitting down and learning more about an unsung hero in public health and food safety, Mr. Bryn Shurmer. Bryn is the Section Head of the Centre for Veterinary Drug Residues at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s Saskatoon Laboratory in Canada. Bryn’s lab tests food of animal products, including honey, for various substances to help ensure the safety of these products for the consumer.
Bryn has an undergraduate degree in chemistry and a master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Waterloo in Canada. The focus of his master’s degree was analytical chemistry with solid phase microextraction, an environmentally friendly technique used for extracting chemicals from samples with complex composition. After 25 years in the field of chemistry, Bryn has worked in academics, the private sector, and government sectors. His work has ranged from finding trace metals, trace organics, drugs, pesticides, mycotoxins and other toxins in soil, water, and foods.
“I love answering questions with the analytical tools we have. It’s always been important to me to have a real-world application to what I am doing. Analytical science gives us such a variety of opportunities to get involved with solving puzzles and questions,” Bryn explained at the beginning of our discussion.
Here’s more highlights from our query and answer conversation:
- Describe your work and your work’s goals?
“I manage a chemical analytical laboratory that’s part of the Canadian government, specifically with food analysis. It would be analogous to parts of the USDA in the States,” Bryn explained.
“Specifically (in our lab) we are looking for a variety of veterinary drugs in food samples, like milk or honey or meat samples. There are three types of categories that we test for…one, those that are approved for use.” Bryn explained that this first category of substances is rigorously tested for safety and has a safe maximum limit allowed in food products.
“The second category would be… not approved drugs. These are the majority of drugs that are out there but are not approved for a specific use within a food species.” Bryn noted that some of these drugs may be approved in other countries or states or may be off-label use recommended by a veterinarian, so case consideration may come in to play.
“The third category of drugs is banned substances. Those are under legislation not to be used in foods of animal origin. It is a small list of drugs that are not allowed to be there at any level.” Bryn compared the philosophy of what they test for as similar to what the World Anti-doping Association would test for in an Olympic competition. - How does your work relate to honey bees and public health?
“Before I started testing honey, I really didn’t think about honey…where it came from or how it was produced. Honey comes from the grocery store (right, haha?).” Bryn now understands that “bees get sick just like any other creature and there are drugs needed to treat their conditions.”
“The work that I am doing with respect to honey is looking for the drugs that are approved for the use in honey bees and that the residues are in line with our expectations, that levels are below the maximum residue.” Bryn emphasized the importance of the public’s understanding of how systematic and rigorous testing of food products are to ensure that their food is safe.
“We have a wide range of drugs that we test for in honey… approved, non-approved and banned… 90 or so in the method that we run.” Bryn then explained that (what I would consider to be the whole pharmacy of antibiotic classes) are routinely tested for in honey samples sent to their lab. - What is your favorite part of your job?
“Today is the best day to be an analytical chemist because of the tools developed over the last 150 years. Liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry are very powerful techniques in the analysis of drugs…These techniques give the ability of separation and detection of small molecules,” Bryn quipped.
“We can get more information out of any given sample than we were ever able to in the past. And we have developed software to help us…we can quickly move on data that we can take action on. That’s a lot of fun!” - What testing do you do on honey and why?
“It is mostly antibiotic…(but using mass spectrometry) we build multi-panels that can test for a wide range of things, so it does not cost anything else to get more information.” Bryn then explained to me that detection of agricultural chemicals’ presence in honey is another application potential use for research. I also learned that fumagillin is of interest in testing in Canada unlike the U.S.
Bryn went on to elaborate on topics of interest for honey testing. These included purity versus the mixing of honeys, honey sources, geographical origins, the dilution of honey and label accuracy. All of these questions can be answered with analytical chemistry techniques. “I think the good actors understand the importance and the service for the industry and the general public. Everybody benefits from food that matches what’s on the label, and that’s tested and known to be safe,” Bryn stated. - What scientific methods do you use to test honey?
“Mass spectrometry…is tough to describe in a short time,” Bryn laughed. “Good news is it has become more and more user friendly over the years.” Bryn further explained that the bottom line in mass spectrometry is that it “gives us unequivocal evidence of the presence of a drug. It is a mass filter that can focus on a single product and distinguish it from even closely related chemical species.” - What is the CODEX in regard to honey?
“My participation in CODEX is as a delegate to a committee on residues of veterinary drugs in food (CCRVDF), as an analytical chemistry expert. The CODEX Alimentarius is a collection of internationally recognized food standards and guidelines and codes of practice that are established to protect consumer health and ensure fair trade practice between countries. There are a lot of different opinions, and we make decisions based on consensus. It is also a service to the developing world to use CODEX resources.”
Bryn further explained to me that the CODEX has definitions on what honey is and guidelines on authentication and proper labelling. CODEX is not meant to override various states’ standards but to help smooth differences between countries. - What does scientific collaboration look like for you and why is it important?
“There is so much knowledge now. Having expertise in areas that you are not well versed in is essential to looking at complex problems. You can’t just look at one aspect; you need to have a wide range of expertise that you can draw on. People will look at things and see different aspects of things. The more ways you can measure a problem the more likely you are to find a solution to it. There might be tools developed in some other field that are exactly what is needed for the project. It’s cross-pollination…that’s my honey joke,” Bryn giggled. - Do you have any personal or professional experience you’d like to share with honey bees?
“The interesting part for me is that honey…it’s not one thing.” Bryn described how he quickly realized that finding a “model honey” on the grocery store shelf was not possible.
“There is so much variety. It is a very complex matrix for chemical analysis.” Bryn explained his fascination with so many different sources and colors as a challenge for analysis.
Bryn’s latest project is the analysis of “mad honey” from rhododendron plants.
“It’s fun. I like talking about chemistry.”
I really enjoyed going behind the scenes with Bryn, this food detective who helps to keep our food safe, willing to share some of the methods used to do so. He certainly offered words of wisdom on what collaborations can do for any industry, including apiculture.
