Drug identification: cooperation with UvA and National Police

The global synthetic drug market has been rapidly expanding to include many novel psychoactive substances (NPS). These designer drugs have chemical structures closely related to ‘traditional’ drugs. Due to the minor variations in molecular structure these NPS induce similar psychoactive effects, but change their legal status and potentially cause severe health effects. Common approaches for isomeric drug identifications are limited. Using infrared ion spectroscopy at FELIX Laboratory, researchers were able to identify NPS even with limited (or none) availability of reference samples, sample impurities or mixtures. This is highly beneficial for the forensic field.

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