PAD project is highlighed in C&E News!
Interview in Chemical and Engineering News highlights our group's work to detect substandard and falsified pharmaceuticals.
…
Project Updates
How does the Scott Test for cocaine work?
The Scott test has been used for over 50 years as a presumptive test for cocaine. It involves a series of reagent additions and color changes...and if it's not done and interpreted correctly, it can send innocent people to jail. This crystal structure now published in Acta Cryst E gives insight into what's going on in the test.
Bis(N,N-diethyl-4-methyl-4-piperazine-1-carboxamide) tetrakis(isothiocyanato-κN)cobalt(II), a model compound for the blue color developed in the Scott test. Oliver, A. G., Lockwood, T.-L. E., Zinna, J. & Lieberman, M. (2023). Acta Cryst. E79, 163-166
Heather Whitehead and Kathleen Hayes published in Forensic Chemistry
This paper shares a tandem mass spectroscopy method for quantitative analysis of 22 drugs and drug metabolites. The samples were harvested from used idPADs; we used this method, along with fentanyl and benzo test strips, to analyze 124 samples of illicit drugs collected from the Chicago area in 2021-2022. …
Kathleen Hayes and Marya Lieberman published in Nature Methods Reviews Primers
This commentary article, "Considerations for the design and implementation of point-of-care technology for use in low- and middle-income countries," uses the PAD project to reflect on why some technologies can be implemented in low-resource settings, and others never make it out of the lab. …
Kim Frederick's paper about teaching analytical method design with MICRO PADs is out!
A conversation with Marya Lieberman--ACS Central Science
Turkey Run 2022
Turkey Run Analytical Conference 2022 was held at Turkey Run State Park in Indiana, and attracted researchers from Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois. In addition to Heather, Kat, Alyssa, Rachel, and Ornella, undergraduates Devena and Sarah presented posters, and Yukun from the Peaslee group also gave a poster. Congratulations to Heather Whitehead and Kathleen Hayes for organizing a great scientific meeting! …
Congratulations to Alyssa Wicks for passing her ARP!
Alyssa signed up for an early ARP time and passed with flying colors! Congratulations, Alyssa. …
Congratulations to Olatunde Awosiji Awotunde, Nicholas Roseboom, and Jin Cai!
Discrimination of Substandard and Falsified Formulations from Genuine Pharmaceuticals Using NIR Spectra and Machine Learning
Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy is a low-cost analytical tool for rapid characterization of pharmaceuticals. Usually, it's necessary to build up a "library" of NIR spectra from authentic products in order to identify real and fake formulations. In this paper, we developed a simple training method that uses binary mixtures of a pharmaceutical (acetaminophen) with two different cutting agents, and used several different data analysis models to extrapolate the training samples to real and fake samples of popular brands of acetaminophen tablets. While none of the models was able to correctly classify all the samples, a simple voting algorithm was able to compensate for the weaknesses of the models and classify 93% of the samples correctly. …
Heather's paper selected as one of top 5 for 2021 by ACS Environmental Science and Technology
New system for tracking DPAL samples and data piloted
Working with the ARTiFACT Verify team, we are developing a system to monitor every stage of post-market surveillance, from sample collection to assay reports and dashboarding. The pilot of the Verify system…
Rachel Roller presents the MICRO project at the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education
Using Paper Microfluidics as a Platform for Increasing Inquiry in the Analytical Laboratory
K. Frederick, A.L. Van Wyk, R.S. Cole, M. Lieberman, R. Roller
Rachel Roller makes the case that paper labware can change the nature of laboratory instruction so it's closer to authentic scientific practice.
…
Congratulations to Heather Whitehead, whose paper on instrument-free detection of DNA with Nile Blue was just accepted by Analytical Methods!
Many nucleic acid tests (NATs) rely on a DNA amplification step as the detection mechanism for pathogens, viral load, and so on. Usually, DNA concentration is measured using a spectrophotometric instrument that costs tens of thousands of dollars. In this paper, Heather Whitehead used an inexpensive dye that binds to DNA and a cell phone to measure the concentration of double stranded DNA in the same concentration range commonly used to analyze NAT results. The color of Nile Blue dye shifts from blue to blue-purple to blue as it binds to DNA. While it's been known for many years that Nile Blue dye changes color when it binds to DNA, and that property has been used to develop instrumental assays, Heather figured out that by using different concentrations of the Nile Blue dye and monitoring the red, green, and blue channel intensities, the concentration of double stranded DNA can be measured with an error of less than 10 ug/ml. …
Webinar on HPLC troubleshooting
C&E News hosted this great webinar about HPLC troubleshooting--I hope it's accessible from this link.…
Congratulations to Kathleen Hayes, People's Choice Award in 3MT contest
Kat Hayes was selected as the People's Choice winner of the 2021 Shaheen 3-minute Thesis contest. Using one static slide, no jargon, and 3 minutes of time, contestants had to explain their graduate research to a general university audience. …
Congratulations to Heather Whitehead, Meghanne Tigh, and Megan Green--PFAS paper goes viral
Heather is the first author on this manuscript with Graham Peaslee, which has been accessed over 66,000 times--it's one of EST's most highly accessed articles in 2021!
Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett. 2021, 8, 7, 538-544
Welcome to Graduate Student Olatunde Awosiji Awotunde
Ola is working on data analytics for pharmaceutical analysis, but is happy to help out with other projects when there's need.
…
Health systems model shows cost-effectiveness of screening amoxicillin quality
Sarah Bliese's paper with the Ozawa group at NC State is now published! Sachiko Ozawa's group developed an agent-based model, ESTEEM (Examining Screening Technologies with Economic Evaluations for Medicines), to estimate the effectiveness and cost savings of incorporating PADs and aPADs in amoxicillin quality surveillance in Kenya. We compared the current testing scenario (batches of entire samples tested by HPLC) with an expedited HPLC scenario (testing smaller batches at a time), as well as a screening scenario using PADs/aPADs to identify poor-quality amoxicillin followed by confirmatory analysis with HPLC. The PADs/aPADs screening scenario identified and removed poor-quality antibiotics faster than the expedited or regular HPLC scenarios, and reduced costs significantly. The model estimates that use of early screening tests could avert 360-870 pneumonia deaths per year in children under age 5 while reducing the number of HPLC tests required. …
Kyle Moon recieves $300 Undergraduate Research Award from Eck Institute
Undergraduate Kyle Moon was selected as a recipient for a $300 undergraduate research grant from the Eck Insitute of Global Health. Kyle is working on a rapid and instrument-free test for childhood lead exposure. Good luck on this project, Kyle! …