Read time: 5 minutes On April 29, 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a final rule regulating laboratory developed tests (LDTs) as in vitro diagnostic devices (IVDs) under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act). This rule amends...
Read time: 4 minutes LC-MS/MS is a powerful analytical tool in forensic toxicology testing that can support a variety of testing regimes such as screening, confirmation and quantitative workflows. More specifically, analysis of NPS using LC-MS/MS provides many...
The development of analytical methods for the detection and quantitation of drugs and metabolites in a range of biological matrices is a challenging process. Forensic toxicology labs need a reproducible and reliable methodology to ensure the robustness of the data and...
Read time: 10 minutes The increased prevalence of novel psychoactive substances (NPS) in the recreational drug market has been a major contributor to the ongoing opioid crisis. NPS are newly emerging compounds designed to mimic existing recreational drugs and have...
Read time: 10 min Novel psychoactive substances (NPS) are compounds designed to mimic existing recreational drugs. The emergence of NPS has changed the landscape of the synthetic drug market. While previously the market had a limited number of compounds belonging to a...
The popularity of CBD products has been on the rise following a federal move to legalize hemp. In an effort to regulate the sale of hemp-derived products in the United States, the government legalized CBD derived from hemp that contains no more than 0.3% THC by dry...
The recent influx of novel psychoactive substances (NPS) into the recreational drug market has posed a serious burden to public health. The availability of these substances through the Internet has contributed to the widespread of NPS globally, raising great concern...
Listen to the Toxpod, an informative podcast about the many facets of the field of forensic toxicology created by Tim Scott and Peter Stockham, two forensic toxicologists working for the South Australian government. Produced by Forensic Science South Australia and the...
Each year, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Testing and Research Laboratory publishes an Emerging Threat Report. The data contained in the report is updated quarterly and represents a snapshot of the drug evidence seized and analyzed by the DEA in the...
Many compounds are challenging to analyze because they are isomers (have the same m/z) and also sometimes have the same HPLC retention time. And to make it even more complicated, sometimes there are two chiral forms that have different functions in biology, making it...
Cyclosporin A (CsA) has been a very successful immunosuppressant for preventing organ transplant rejection. It is a large cyclic peptide (11 residues, ~1200 Da) and there are numerous modifications of this drug, some of which are isomers. The challenge of analyzing...
Mass spectrometry’s important role in identifying explosives The need for rapid explosive detection is now an unfortunate reality. The remit is multifaceted. The first is for preventative purposes, to protect us from any threat to life. The second is in the...