Assistant: Apr. T. DECAESTECKER

Mass spectrometric screening analysis

A first part of my research consists of developing a screening procedure for the systematic toxicological analysis of several categories of drugs relevant to forensic toxicology. Because of its specificity and sensitivity, the method of choice is gas chromatography – continuous scan mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Before the GC analysis, a derivatisation is necessary to include polar drugs and their metabolites in the screening. A lot of attention will be paid to automation of the full process, from sample clean-up to data processing, the latter eventually using chemometric approaches. In a next phase, the aim is the extend this work into the field of liquid chromatography – mass spectrometry (LC-MS).

By Apr. Tineke Decaestecker