Determining human exposure to drugs and other chemicals

Project description

Current processes of assessing contamination of houses etc. rely on testing of wipe-samples of surfaces for presence and concentration of drugs or other chemicals. This project extends on previous projects into quantifying the extent of contamination and exposure. Adjustment of a recently acquired CPR 'dummy' with single use 'mouth throat and lung bags' will enable it* to be placed in environments that contain drugs or in situations where it will be exposed to drugs. Subsequent washing of the lung bag with methanol and analysis by GCMS or LCMS would determine the ACTUAL extent of exposure of a human to chemicals. For example it could be placed in a known contaminated 'meth' house for 24 hours to breath in the air and determine the atmospheric exposure. Or using the  'simulated smoking device', recently designed at Flinders University, we can control exposure to the dummy and determine the actual extent of oral exposure. *Dummy - non-binary name to be determined.

Co-supervisors

To be determined.

Assumed knowledge

basic analytical chemistry

Industry involvement

There is potential involvement with the drug assessment industry.

Note: You need to register interest in projects from different supervisors (not a number of projects with the one supervisor).
You must also contact each supervisor directly to discuss both the project details and your suitability to undertake the project.