PhD in Sustainable development and cooperation

Contacts

Supervisor

Phd thesis

According to recent studies, alcohol and drug abuse in the population is increasing, forcing forensic toxicology laboratories to work towards effective and quick-turnout results techniques. Dried Blood Spot (DBS), which is a micro sampling technique based on a whole blood drop collection on a filter paper, is often considered as the procedure of choice. DBS offers the advantage of the detection of slightly altered or structurally different compounds, like drugs of abuse and their metabolites, in a single run from a small volume of blood with a great degree of accuracy in detection and measurement. DBS is a sustainable technique as it requires low sample volume, less solvent use, no special shipping and storage conditions, thus having less waste production and energy consumption. The main goal of this PhD project is to fully develop and validate effective and last-generation analytical methods for the detection of biomarkers of alcohol abuse and psychoactive substances in DBS. One effective and relatively new alcohol biomarker is Phospatidylethanol (PEth), which provides information about a persons’ drinking behavior up to 1 month. The analysis will be performed with Ultra High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (UHPLC) coupled with quadrupole/time-of-flight high resolution (QTOF-HRMS) and triple quadrupoles mass spectrometer because of their fast results, high sensitivity, specificity and accuracy. Because of its ease and simplicity, DBS provides the analytical laboratories the opportunity to perform extensive regional and international research for the alcohol and drugs diffusion and to provide innovative and non-invasive tools for roadside and workplace testing, as well as clinical investigations. Indeed, the DBS features may offer diagnostic methods for rare diseases, newborn screening and therapeutic drug monitoring, as well as finding innovative applications in the -omics sciences.