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Research partners from Carleton University and the University of Ottawa have unveiled a new drug-testing instrument that can identify harmful substances in drug samples in under 20 seconds.
Lynne Leonard, a professor and research scientist in epidemiology at uOttawa, said the device will not only reduce the risk of harm from unknown drug content for drug users, but will also make it easier to release “real-time information about current drug trends,” which could help get public warnings out faster.
Leonard is the leader of the research project that received a $500,000 grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to develop a concept for the device, which was developed by U.S. manufacturer BaySpec in co-ordination with the Ottawa group. Money from the grant was also used for the purchase of one of the drug-testing units for the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre.
At a Thursday morning news conference at the Sandy Hill health centre, Leonard spoke of the “dire consequences” of prescription opioids that have led to the opioid crisis.
“One in seven Ontarians were prescribed opioids in 2016,” she said, adding that 40 per cent of those prescriptions for chronic pain were daily doses above the recommended strength.
The Sandy Hill community Health Centre has acquired a drug-testing machine that can identify dangerous substances in seconds.
According to the latest data from Ottawa Public Health, the city had 48 deaths from unintentional drug overdoses in 2015, 29 of which were due to opioids and 14 due to fentanyl.
Dubbed a “portable mass spectrometer,” the 10-kilogram instrument is the first of its kind and can provide a breakdown of all the chemicals in a drug sample by weighing the mass of its molecules. Co-investigator and mass spectrometrist Jeffrey C. Smith of Carleton explained the process during a demonstration of the instrument. A small metal stick is dipped into a drug sample and put into a port in the instrument. Seconds later, a chemical breakdown of the substance appears on the instrument’s mounted screen.
The device can conduct measurements on a mere nanogram — that’s one billionth of a gram — of a given drug. Smith said he wouldn’t be surprised if the accuracy of the device was “a million times better” than the fentanyl testing strips that are currently on the market.
For the time being, the instrument’s biggest drawback is its price tag of $130,000 U.S., but the researchers said they expect the price to drop once other developers emerge, creating a more competitive market.
Drug testing at the health centre is done on a voluntary basis. No recommendations are given by testers to drug users after the sampling is done, no matter the results of the test. Because the device requires only a very small drug sample, the researchers say drug users will be more willing to donate samples for testing.
Rob Boyd, co-investigator and director of the Sandy Hill health centre’s harm reduction program, looked back to October 2017, when Ottawa police first warned of an outbreak of carfentanil (an opioid that’s 100 times as powerful as fentanyl) two months after it had entered the illicit drug market. Boyd said the lag time between the drug’s arrival in the city and public awareness of the drug is a problem that the new instrument is designed to fix.
Karl Wasslen, Carleton mass spectrometry centre lab manager, demonstrates the new portable mass spectrometer at the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre on Thursday, May 03, 2018.
“Now, thanks to this research project, what took months will now take seconds,” he said. “For the first time, people who inject drugs will be able to find out what is in the drugs they have purchased from the unregulated market before they use them.”
The technology could also detect new harmful drugs that could be on the horizon. “We can detect novel substances that we don’t even know are coming or are out there,” Boyd said.
The researchers say there is a lot of interest in the technology among health centres across Canada, including those in Ottawa. According to Somerset Coun. Catherine McKenney, the Somerset West health centre is making plans to obtain the device. The centre, located in a ward that had the second-highest rate of overdose-related emergency room visits from 2013 to 2015, opened a temporary overdose prevention site just over a week ago. That site will be open until the completion of its new supervised safe-injection site.
McKenney said the device is a “game-changer” that will be a great addition to health centre programs, but stressed that will not supersede the need for other aspects of harm reduction: “We still very much need overdose prevention and we very much need supervised injection services. This device alone won’t replace those services.”
The device arrived at the Sandy Hill health centre on Tuesday. As of Thursday, the device was fully operational, and any of the centre’s 1,200 clients can voluntarily have their drugs tested in its safe-injection space.
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Lynne Leonard, a professor and research scientist in epidemiology at uOttawa, said the device will not only reduce the risk of harm from unknown drug content for drug users, but will also make it easier to release “real-time information about current drug trends,” which could help get public warnings out faster.
Leonard is the leader of the research project that received a $500,000 grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to develop a concept for the device, which was developed by U.S. manufacturer BaySpec in co-ordination with the Ottawa group. Money from the grant was also used for the purchase of one of the drug-testing units for the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre.
At a Thursday morning news conference at the Sandy Hill health centre, Leonard spoke of the “dire consequences” of prescription opioids that have led to the opioid crisis.
“One in seven Ontarians were prescribed opioids in 2016,” she said, adding that 40 per cent of those prescriptions for chronic pain were daily doses above the recommended strength.
The Sandy Hill community Health Centre has acquired a drug-testing machine that can identify dangerous substances in seconds.
According to the latest data from Ottawa Public Health, the city had 48 deaths from unintentional drug overdoses in 2015, 29 of which were due to opioids and 14 due to fentanyl.
Dubbed a “portable mass spectrometer,” the 10-kilogram instrument is the first of its kind and can provide a breakdown of all the chemicals in a drug sample by weighing the mass of its molecules. Co-investigator and mass spectrometrist Jeffrey C. Smith of Carleton explained the process during a demonstration of the instrument. A small metal stick is dipped into a drug sample and put into a port in the instrument. Seconds later, a chemical breakdown of the substance appears on the instrument’s mounted screen.
The device can conduct measurements on a mere nanogram — that’s one billionth of a gram — of a given drug. Smith said he wouldn’t be surprised if the accuracy of the device was “a million times better” than the fentanyl testing strips that are currently on the market.
For the time being, the instrument’s biggest drawback is its price tag of $130,000 U.S., but the researchers said they expect the price to drop once other developers emerge, creating a more competitive market.
Drug testing at the health centre is done on a voluntary basis. No recommendations are given by testers to drug users after the sampling is done, no matter the results of the test. Because the device requires only a very small drug sample, the researchers say drug users will be more willing to donate samples for testing.
Rob Boyd, co-investigator and director of the Sandy Hill health centre’s harm reduction program, looked back to October 2017, when Ottawa police first warned of an outbreak of carfentanil (an opioid that’s 100 times as powerful as fentanyl) two months after it had entered the illicit drug market. Boyd said the lag time between the drug’s arrival in the city and public awareness of the drug is a problem that the new instrument is designed to fix.
Karl Wasslen, Carleton mass spectrometry centre lab manager, demonstrates the new portable mass spectrometer at the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre on Thursday, May 03, 2018.
“Now, thanks to this research project, what took months will now take seconds,” he said. “For the first time, people who inject drugs will be able to find out what is in the drugs they have purchased from the unregulated market before they use them.”
The technology could also detect new harmful drugs that could be on the horizon. “We can detect novel substances that we don’t even know are coming or are out there,” Boyd said.
The researchers say there is a lot of interest in the technology among health centres across Canada, including those in Ottawa. According to Somerset Coun. Catherine McKenney, the Somerset West health centre is making plans to obtain the device. The centre, located in a ward that had the second-highest rate of overdose-related emergency room visits from 2013 to 2015, opened a temporary overdose prevention site just over a week ago. That site will be open until the completion of its new supervised safe-injection site.
McKenney said the device is a “game-changer” that will be a great addition to health centre programs, but stressed that will not supersede the need for other aspects of harm reduction: “We still very much need overdose prevention and we very much need supervised injection services. This device alone won’t replace those services.”
The device arrived at the Sandy Hill health centre on Tuesday. As of Thursday, the device was fully operational, and any of the centre’s 1,200 clients can voluntarily have their drugs tested in its safe-injection space.
查看原文...
