The overall objective of the proposed program is the development of instrumentation and methodology to identify and quantify drugs and their metabolites in urine five minutes or less. This analysis is critical for proper diagnosis and choice of care for emergency room patients suffering from an overdose of prescription of illicit drugs. The instrument will employ Raman spectral analysis to identify the drug and/or metabolite, and a unique sample cell to increase sensitivity to physiological concentrations. The instruments will perform repeated, reproducible, quantitative drug analysis using milliliter specimen volumes, with little or no sample preparation.
In addition to emergency rooms, and other critical care units, the instrument will find use in clinical laboratories, physicians' offices, work place drug testing, field equipment of law enforcement, screeening of athletes, race horse and dogs in sporting events. The ability to measure trace chemicals is also applicable to environmental analysis (e.g. public ground water and industrial waste streams). Furthermore, real-time monitoring by Raman spectroscopy is broadly applicable to the chemical, petrochemical, and pharmaceutical industries.
