A complete workflow for the determination of drugs in hair - Forensics Webinar Week

The use of hair as a biological matrix for forensic toxicology testing has increased in popularity over the last decade, with laboratories testing for a panel of drugs as recommended by societies such as the Society of Hair Testing (SoHT) or the European Workplace Drug Testing Society (EWDTS).1-2

A robust sample preparation workflow and sensitive UPLC/MS/MS method has been developed that allows the user to determine such panels of drugs of abuse in hair to meet these guidelines. The workflow allows the user to determine multiple classes of drugs such as opiates, amphetamines, cocaine, ketamine, buprenorphine, benzodiazepines and their metabolites as well as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and its metabolite carboxy-THC (cTHC) from a single hair specimen.

Following incubation in a commercially available extraction buffer, the analytes were separated from the remaining hair matrix using a single solid phase extraction (SPE) method using OASIS PRiME MCX 96-well plates. Two ACQUITY I-Class / Xevo TQ-S micro LC/MS/MS methods were developed; one to measure 29 “basic drugs” and the second to measure THC, cannabidiol and cannabinol.

This workflow allows all the analytes to be quantified at concentrations below the recommended confirmation cut-offs of the two societies in under 10 minutes per sample, allowing for a large number of samples to be analysed in a short period of time.

Presenter: Robert Lee (Principal Clinical Application Scientist, Waters Corporation)

Rob Lee is a Principal Application Scientist in the Toxicology group in the Waters Scientific Operations Group.

Rob has published many papers on the analysis of toxicologically relevant small molecules in biological matrices. He is a recognized expert in the use of liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry, giving invited papers at international meetings around the world.

After obtaining an honours degree in Bioanalytical Sciences from Kingston Polytechnic, London in 1987, he started work at Biorex Research Laboratories in the Drug Metabolism Department. During his time at Biorex he conducted many in vivo drug metabolism studies. In 1989 he moved to BIBRA laboratories where he was responsible for developing methods for the determination of DNA adducts in mouse skin following exposure to various mineral oils. In 1994 he moved to Zeneca, later Syngenta, where he undertook work into the comparative mechanisms of toxicity of various industrial and agrochemical materials in different animal species. In 2007 he started working for Waters Corporation in the Toxicology Group in the Clinical Business Operations group. He has developed many methods for the analysis of toxicologically relevant compounds in various biological matrices and presented these methods at international meetings around the world.