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Forensic Science

Drugs & toxicology

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Displaying 51 - 75 of 83

Screening and Confirmation of Seized Drugs Utilizing Portable Raman Spectroscopy (TacticID) and Direct Analysis in Real Time-Mass Spectrometry (DART-MS)

October 8, 2021
Author(s)
Travon Cooman, Colby E. Ott, Kourtney A. Dalzell, Amber Burns, Edward Sisco, Luis E. Arroyo
The continuous change of the drug landscape in the United States demands adaptation and incorporation of emerging analytical methods that preferably allow onsite screening but are also capable of supporting the analysis of seized drugs received at forensic

Cannabis Quality Assurance Program: Exercise 1 Final Report

July 27, 2021
Author(s)
MARYAM ABDUL-RAHMAN, Melissa M. Phillips, Walter Brent Wilson
NIST launched a CannaQAP in 2020 to improve the comparability of the analytical measurements in forensic and Cannabis (hemp and marijuana) testing laboratories. CannaQAP is an interlaboratory study mechanism that is similar to a proficiency testing scheme

Creation and Release of an Updated NIST DART-MS Forensics Database

June 17, 2021
Author(s)
Edward Sisco, Arun Moorthy, Laura M. Watt
Facing increasing caseloads and an everchanging drug landscape, forensic laboratories have been implementing new analytical tools. Direct analysis in real time mass spectrometry (DART-MS) is often one of these tools because it provides a wealth of

Forensic Applications of DART-MS: A Review of Recent Literature

June 17, 2021
Author(s)
Edward Sisco, Thomas Forbes
The need for rapid chemical analyses and new analytical tools in forensic laboratories continues to grow due to case backlogs, difficult to analyze cases, and identification of previously unseen materials such as new psychoactive substances. To adapt to

The use of lateral flow immunoassays for the detection of fentanyl in seized drug samples and postmortem urine

June 17, 2021
Author(s)
Daniel J. Angelini, Tracey Biggs, Amber M. Prugh, Jessica A. Smith, Jennifer A. Hanburger, Bob Llano, Raquel Avelar, Angela Ellis, Brady Lusk, Abdallah Naanaa, Edward Sisco, Jennifer W. Sekowski
The opioid crisis has continued to progress in the United States and the rest of the world. As this crisis continues, there is a pressing need for a rapid and cost-effective method for detecting fentanyl. Recent studies have suggested that lateral flow

A Multi-Laboratory Investigation of Drug Background Levels

September 9, 2019
Author(s)
Edward R. Sisco, Marcela N. Najarro
Identifying, quantifying, and analyzing the drug background in operational environments such as forensic laboratories is an emerging body of research. Understanding these levels can provide critical information to address issues like occupational exposure

Evaluation of a lateral flow immunoassay for the detection of the synthetic opioid fentanyl

April 26, 2019
Author(s)
Edward Sisco, Daniel J. Angelini, Tracey D. Briggs, Michele N. Maughan, Michael G. Feasel, Jennifer W. Sekowski
In the United States in 2016, 64,000 overdose deaths were reported to be associated with the abuse of opioids, including prescription painkillers (e.g. oxycodone), opiates (e.g. heroin), or synthetic opioids (e.g. fentanyl). The recent spike in the

A Method for Measuring the Quantity of Drugs on Surfaces in a Forensic Laboratory

September 19, 2018
Author(s)
Edward R. Sisco, Marcela N. Najarro, Amber Burns
While background studies have been commonplace in many occupational fields for a long time, attempts to understand the chemical background in forensics labs has been largely understudied. However, given the increasing sensitivity of instrumentation and

Strategies and Considerations for the Trace Detection of Fentalogs

October 26, 2017
Author(s)
Edward Sisco
Fentanyl and fentanyl analogs pose a significant and ever changing threat in the United States as both pure compounds and in complex mixtures. While commonly considered detection techniques require visible amounts of powder (i.e. color tests or GC/MS

Best Practices for Evaluating Single Nucleotide Variant Calling Methods for Microbial Genomics

July 7, 2015
Author(s)
Nathanael D. Olson, Steven P. Lund, Rebecca Colman, Jeffery T. Foster, Jason W. Sahl, James M. Schupp, Paul Keim, Jayne B. Morrow, Marc L. Salit, Justin M. Zook
Innovations in sequencing technologies have allowed biologists to make incredible advances in understanding biological systems. As experience grows, researchers increasingly recognize that analyzing the wealth of data provided by these new sequencing
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