Dr. Karen Scott, associate professor and program director of forensic science, and Dr. Lorna Nisbet, forensic science doctorate student at Arcadia and lecturer of analytical chemistry and forensic science at Anglia Ruskin University, published groundbreaking drug identification research, “The Quantitative Identification of 23 New Psychoactive Substances in Blood and Urine,” in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology.

Drs. Scott and Nisbet discovered that gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) could identify 23 drugs from urine and blood samples in a 30-minute period, thereby creating an alternative for labs that do not have a liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS). This is the first time this combination of drugs have been tested together for individual identification.