Opioid sensing at point-of-need

Published

July 29, 2026

Author(s)

Thinh Bui, Edward Sisco, Kyle Chapkin, Wenqi Zhu, Junyeob Song, Dhruv Forma, Anthony Kearsley, Henri Lezec

Abstract

The opioid epidemic, headlined by synthetic fentanyl, is a growing international concern that has especially garnered great attention in the United States at all levels of government. As a federal agency, the National Institute of Technology (NIST) was called upon to engage leading communities (law enforcement and public health agencies) by leading the effort on advanced analytics for understanding the rapidly-evolving illicit drug landscape. We discuss current efforts at NIST towards these ambitious goals, ranging from accelerating portable mass spectrometry to developing nascent technologies (spectroscopy with metamaterials), in conjunction with advanced modeling. These programs support an encompassing effort to highlight measurements and data standardization as key tools to combat the growing threat of synthetic opioids.

Citation

npj Biosensing

Volume

3

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1038/s44328-026-00112-y

Local Download

Keywords

opioid, metamaterials, mass spectrometry, infrared spectroscopy

Citation

Bui, T. , Sisco, E. , Chapkin, K. , Zhu, W. , Song, J. , Forma, D. , Kearsley, A. and Lezec, H. (2026), Opioid sensing at point-of-need, npj Biosensing, [online], https://doi.org/10.1038/s44328-026-00112-y, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=961643 (Accessed August 13, 2026)

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