Unveiling the Unseen: The Role of HPMS in Low-Concentration NPS Field Detection

Session- Case Studies: Emerging Technologies in Casework
May 27, 2025
15:00-16:00
Nadine will be the final speaker in the session.

The emergence of New Psychoactive Substances (NPS), particularly fentanyl analogs and nitazenes, presents significant challenges for field detection of synthetic opioids. This presentation explores the rapid evolution and increasing diversity of these substances, which complicate traditional detection methods in the field. The highly potent nature of these synthetic opioids necessitates advancements in portable technologies capable of identifying and quantifying low-concentration samples with precision. High-Pressure Mass Spectrometry (HPMS) has emerged as a particularly promising tool due to its sensitivity, portability, and ability to provide rapid results in real-world conditions. In addition to HPMS, other technologies such as portable mass spectrometry, FTIR/Raman spectroscopy, and colorimetric tests offer complementary capabilities, each with its own strengths and limitations. Enhancing field detection capabilities with advanced tools like HPMS is critical for mitigating the infiltration of these threats, ultimately improving public health and safety outcomes.

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Outclassing Emerging Threats with Emerging Technology

Session- Chemistry: CBRN
May 30, 2025
10:30 – 12:00
Nadine will speak from 11:15-11:30

The term “emerging threats” is used to define relatively new chemical substances
such as fourth generation agents (FGAs) and pharmaceutical based agents (PBAs)
which are extremely toxic at trace levels and have the capacity to be used for
chemical attacks. Following the lethal use of an FGA in Salisbury, UK in 2018, the
US Department of Health and Human Services published a safety awareness
bulletin for on-scene responders about FGAs which noted that hazmat teams have
limited detection capabilities for these substances. Indeed, their complexity requires
an emerging detection approach which can identify an agent by name when needed
to drive decon considerations (for FGAs) but also classify an agent by type when
thousands of novel analogs can exist and evade a library-based approach (for
PBAs). Learn how chemical agents have evolved since WWI into the FGAs and
PBAs of today and how handheld mass spectrometry addresses the field detection
problem using a combination of targeted libraries to identify threats by name and
broader classification algorithms to detect threats which have been newly
synthesized. Hands-on exercises will be conducted to illustrate scenarios such as
trace residue detection on contaminated surfaces and post-event decon verification.