Researchers are constantly trying to get ahead of designer drugs and their ever-changing formulas. Mass spectroscopy is a vital component of that, as it can determine the weight and shape of the molecules in a drug sample and its overall composition. Even if there is no reference standard available for a specific sample, mass spectroscopy analysis can at least point forensic scientists in the right direction.
Recently, scientists in the UK and Australia have been working on leveraging the technology in their own ways to aid drug analysis.
High-res MS
In a new study, researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and BC Provincial Toxicology Centre (BCPTC) showed how high-resolution mass spectrometry can be used to analyze urine samples at scale and uncover molecules from emerging designer drugs that have been missed by conventional testing. The goal of the study, published in Analytical Chemistry, was to find a better way to prioritize acquisition of reference standards.
To do this, the researchers used high-resolution mass spectrometry to re-analyze more than 12,000 urine samples collected in B.C. from 2019 to 2022. The retrospective analysis surfaced new synthetic opioids, benzodiazepines and stimulants that had eluded identification during initial screening.
One of them, fluorofentanyl, is a modified version of fentanyl that was absent from samples before mid-2022 and then spiked during the final few months of the study. This suggests it was introduced to the local drug supply quite suddenly. A few other drugs also had distinct peaks during the 2-year study period.
"We were able to detect a number of drugs circulating in B.C. that were not being detected by existing tests. Any time such drugs emerge locally, that’s important information for clinicians and public health officials to have,” said Michael Skinnider, the study’s lead author who conducted the research as an MD/PhD student at UBC and is now an assistant professor at Princeton University.
The BCCDC is in the process of implementing this new tool into its clinical urine drug screen and hopes to apply it to other datasets in the future.
“Applying this process on a regular basis will allow us to respond much more quickly to the emergence of new drugs and greatly reduce the time between a drug's introduction to the community, and our ability to test for it in a rigorous way," said Aaron Shapiro, the study’s senior author who is a clinical assistant professor in UBC’s department of pathology and laboratory medicine.
NIR
Drugs that are contaminated or substituted with an unexpected substance are a leading cause of death among people who use drugs. In Australia, PhD candidate Harry Fursman is working to counteract that by bringing a new mass spec-derived handheld device for rapidly identifying drug specimens to the country.
Fursman is testing a small handheld, near-infrared device known as the MicroNIR, which can rapidly and accurately identify and quantify suspected drug specimens. He wants to test this technology in Australian contexts, as well as assess its usability, costs and accuracy for operational implementation.
“Initially we had to optimize its use within Australia as it’s based on machine learning models trained with drugs of different chemical compositions than we typically see here,” Fursman said. “We found that it is very accurate. It correctly predicts the identity of suspected drugs over 95% of the time and the purity estimates obtained are also quite accurate.”
The MicroNIR is able to collect highly accurate data not only by direct contact with a small amount of the substance but also by scanning through a plastic bag or glass container.
The instrument is already in use in a variety of applications, including drug testing, in other countries. Fursman is hopeful to see it adopted in Australia, not only for policing but also at drug testing services for supervised injecting facilities, music festivals and even clubs.
In tandem with testing the MicroNIR device, Fursman is also conducting ongoing chemical analyses of used syringes at the Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre to see if people are actually injecting what they think they are and to identify trends in injected substances over time.