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Ancora 1
Confirmed Speaker
  •  Assoz.Prof. Dr. Herbert Oberacher 

Current status of non-targeted liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry in forensic toxicology

 

Herbert Oberacher

 

Institute of Legal Medicine and Core Facility Metabolomics, Medical University of Innsbruck, Muellerstrasse 44, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria, herbert.oberacher@i-med.ac.at

 

A core task of any forensic toxicology lab is providing comprehensive information on the chemical composition of evidence. This mission can only be accomplished by combining efficient detection techniques with reliable identification procedures. A competent approach for the sensitive detection of a large variety of potentially toxic compounds is liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) [1, 2]. The concept of non-targeted analysis is realized by applying either data-dependent or data-independent acquisition strategies. Non-targeted LC/MS/MS produces informative features for subsequent compound identification. Of particular importance is the availability of fragmentation information. Additionally, retention times and isotopic distributions may be used. During the identification process, extracted features are matched against data sets obtained from reference standards. The reference data is often stored in databases. Although state-of-the-art tandem mass spectral databases enable automated compound identification with high sensitivity and specificity, the final decision on identity is still taken by an expert who carefully reviews the provided arguments.

 

References

[1] Oberacher, H., Arnhard, K., Bioanalysis 7, 2825 (2015).

[2] Oberacher, H., Arnhard, K., Trends Anal. Chem. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.trac.2015.12.019.

 Assoz.Prof. Dr. Herbert Oberacher is an analytical chemist and the head of an independent research group and the scientific leader of the 'Core Facility Metabolomics' of the Medical University of Innsbruck. His research focuses on the development of techniques for the analysis of bioorganic molecules with special emphasis on application in forensic toxicology as well as medical, biological and pharmaceutical research. Prof. Oberacher developed the “Wiley Registry of Tandem Mass Spectral Data: MS for ID”, co-authored more than 90 papers in international scientific journals and holds three patents.

Forensic Mass Spectrometry

The aims of Forensic Mass Spectrometry Verona 2016, are to exchange scientific and technical information and to promote research, improve practice, and encourage interdisciplinary collaboration among the different areas of forensic science (forensic pathology, toxicology, genetics, criminalistics etc) based on the most advanced analytical technology.​

November 11th, 2016 - Verona, Italy

1st IMaSS Symposium on

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