Automation and Specialization: The Tobacco Lab Today

Ashley, who worked for the CDC prior to the FDA, helped establish the Tobacco Lab in 1994, remembers those first years few years of research
“Our first smoking machine was a 50-milliliter syringe,” says Ashley, who along with other chemists attached a cigarette to the end of a syringe, which would simulate taking a puff of smoke when they pulled up the syringe. “We injected the smoke into a bag, which we could take into the laboratory and analyze it.”

A close up of a CDC smoking machine. Photo Provided by Division of Laboratory Sciences, NCEH

The lab has come a long way since those humble beginnings. In the last two years, the CDC Tobacco Lab has doubled in size and now Watson’s team is using the latest technological tools to determine what compounds are in tobacco products and in what concentrations.

The lab now operates 11 commercial smoking machines. A robotic arm lines up cigarettes into ports and lights them one by one. Jets of smoke emit from the cigarettes as if invisible smokers are exhaling. Throughout the process, smoke is collected on filter pads and in gas sampling bags and transported to other equipment for further analysis.

James Pirkle, MD, PhD, director of NCEH’s Division of Laboratory Sciences, says it’s critical that the tobacco-specific laboratory capability remains at CDC, citing two reasons – one, it would be technically difficult to replicate elsewhere, and two, CDC has amassed a very specialized staff to do this type of work.

“We have acquired over time a broad group of experts who collectively are the strongest analytical group anywhere for making these measurements on tobacco products, smoke and in people,” Pirkle says.

For Additional Resources on tobacco smoke and exposure, click here.