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Investigating drugs of abuse with Applied Biosystems LC/MS/MS systems

Thermo Fisher Scientific
3 May 2006
Kerry Parker
CEO

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Biochemists at the Leeds Teaching Hospital are delighted with their API 3000(tm) LC/MS/MS systems from Applied Biosystems, which they are using to develop methods for looking at drugs of abuse, their metabolites and chemicals used in the treatment of drug addiction.

Mr Keith Allen, Consultant Biochemist, explained: "The two API 3000 systems can analyse oral fluid and urine, looking for up to 30 compounds simultaneously using multiple reaction monitoring chromatography. The beauty of using LC/MS/MS in this way is that you can look for the metabolites too; drug identification and confirmation shouldn't just be based on a parent compound. We have already published a method using these systems to distinguish illicit heroin from pharmaceutical grade heroin in oral fluid samples and we are now working on a method that determines the effectiveness of naltrexone implants, used for treating heroin addiction, by measuring naltrexone and its metabolite naltrexol in oral fluid and serum."

Mr Allen concluded: "We are very happy with these systems. Compared to immunoassays, LC/MS/MS is certainly the way forward."

For more information, please contact: abdirect@eur.appliedbiosystems.com

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LC-MSLC-MS (liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry) systems and equipment are used for separation and quantitative analysis of complex mixtures, combining liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. Quantify proteins, contaminants, pesticides or screen for drug metabolites with a high level of sensitivity. LC-MS systems and equipment include reverse phase, normal phase and specialized columns integrated with various MS detectors such as time-of-flight (TOF), quadrupole, orbitrap or ion trap mass analyzers. LC-MS/MS instruments equipped with a qTOF or triple quadrupole analyzer give greater sensitivity and resolving power to your analysis. Find the best LC-MS equipment in our peer-reviewed product directory: compare products, check customer reviews and receive pricing direct from manufacturers.Combinatorial ChemistryCombinatorial chemistry, also known as combichem, is a technique used in drug discovery to create libraries of structurally related compounds. A library is generated by synthesis with a chemical reactor system or by computer-based modeling of compound combinations. When undertaking combinatorial chemistry consider reagents, buffers, resins and standards.Medicinal ChemistryMedicinal chemistry is a broad discipline encompassing the design, identification, synthesis and development of chemicals in drug discovery. It includes a number of techniques covering structural biology, synthetic chemistry and molecular biology. Technologies used in medicinal chemistry include ADME, lab-on-a-chip, high content screening and assay assembly.

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Investigating drugs of abuse with Applied Biosystems LC/MS/MS systems