Forensic Toxicology
Research
Forensic Medicine and Science has a long-standing history of offering research degrees to students from the UK and overseas, with many graduates going on to become established experts and leaders in their specialties. A list of research thesis titles from the past 50 years features many of the prominent topics in the development of the field.
The major research interests in forensic toxicology have developed primarily from the casework. Changing social trends identified through forensic toxicology casework often drive the creation of new research projects.
The forensic toxicology laboratories are equipped with state-of-the-art analytical instrumentation providing both research students and collaborators with the opportunity to undertake essential, high quality research. The toxicology service constantly needs to develop advanced analytical methods, often based on innovative combinations of modern instrumentation and alternative biological matrices. These new methodologies provide important tools for the interpretation of toxicology results.
Research is carried out within broad subject areas such as:
- Instrumentation and Methodology
- Alcohol and Drugs in the Community
- Drug Facilitated Sexual Assaults
- Drugs and Driving
- Emerging Drugs
Recent projects have included drug abuse in pregnancy, opioid abuse in the Glasgow area, the stability of drugs and alcohol, blood spot analysis; the development of broad drug screening methods utilizing QTOF LC-MS; investigating alternative matrices and biomarkers, and interpretation of drug concentrations in post-mortem samples.
Further details on current research opportunities are available from the individual researchers:
Dr Robert Anderson; Dr Gail Cooper; Dr Karen Scott; Dr Hazel Torrance and Dr Fiona Wylie.