Svetlana Skobeeva

Research project: Application of Chemometrics in Forensic Science

Abstract

Synthetic cannabinoid Receptor Agonists (SCRAs) refer to a variety of psychoactive substances sprayed onto a dry matrix, such as herbs or tobacco and first became available in early 2000's through convenience stores and online sources and became increasingly popular in recreational use due to their high potency, relatively low prices and ease of availability compared to cannabis. Most of the recent research utilising NIR and chemometrics is focused on identifying adulterated food samples, fraudulent pharmaceuticals/tobaccos and identifying samples' geographical origin and those done exclusively on SCRAs have mostly used more complex, costly and destructive techniques, such as GC-MS, UHPLC and NMR. 

This project will focus on developing a targeted model for classifying SCRAs and building a database of such using NIR and multivariate analysis methods, such as PCA, SIMCA, PLS-DA and LDA. In the second and third year these methods will be applied to fingerprint analysis and trace cosmetic evidence.