Tox Chat Box: Decoding forensic toxicology with LC-MS/MS

Dr Tina Binz is the head of the center for Forensic Hair Analytics at the Zurich Institute of Forensic Medicine, affiliated with the University of Zurich. Her work primarily focuses on detecting drugs and metabolites in keratinized matrices for forensic and clinical applications. 

Pierre Negri (P.N.): Welcome to the fifth episode of Tox Chat Box, a SCIEX vodcast series where we discuss the latest trends and applications in forensic toxicology. I'm Pierre Negri from SCIEX and in today's episode, we're going to talk about the challenges associated with the detection of low levels of drugs and metabolites in keratinized matrices, which include hair and nail. Today, we're joined by Dr. Tina Binz. Tina is the head of the Center for Forensic Hair Analytics at the Zurich Institute for Forensic Medicine, which is affiliated with the University of Zurich. Her work primarily focuses on the detection of drugs and metabolites in keratinized matrices for forensic applications.

Hi Tina, how are you doing today?

Tina Binz (T.B.): Hi Pierre, I'm doing good. Thanks.

P.N.: Great to have you on. So, Tina, you've been working at the Institute for Forensic Medicine for over 12 years now, where you've been developing LC-MS/MS-based workflows for the detection of drugs and metabolites in hair and nail samples. Can you tell us briefly the scope of your work and the institutions that your laboratory is supporting?

T.B.: Yeah. So, the Zurich Center for Forensic Hair Analytics provides forensic hair analysis for the Swiss authorities and criminal investigations. The cases that we are working with are, for example, drug-facilitated crimes, child custody cases, post-mortem toxicology, as well as abstinence controls, rehabilitation programs and regaining driver's licenses.

P.N.: So, your lab specializes in keratinized matrices, which, as I mentioned, include hair and nail. For those not familiar, can you tell us about the benefits and the advantages of using those matrices for determining long term exposure?

T.B.: Yeah. So, the keratinized matrices of hair and nail are so-called complementary matrices to the classical matrices like blood or urine that everybody knows. They provide detection windows of several months for a wide range of substances, so hair and nails are, therefore, ideal matrices to investigate drug consumption behaviors and drug use patterns. The sampling is noninvasive, and samples can be stored at room temperature for many years without degradation.

There are lots of challenges with these matrices. For example, external contamination through smoke and dust and also sensitivity issues when detecting low substance concentrations.

P.N.: Thank you for that background. So, your lab has been working really hard over the past couple of years in developing LC-MS/MS-based workflows for the detection of a variety of drug classes. I know you've worked with stimulants, opioids, benzodiazepines, antidepressants and neuroleptics but you also started looking at novel psychoactive substances, in recent years. One of the projects that I found particularly interesting is the analysis of fentanyl analogs in children's hair and, more specifically, to look at prenatal exposure. Can you tell us a little bit more about how this project came about and discuss some of the challenges associated with hair analysis in children?

T.B.: Yeah. So, this project was initiated to investigate the incorporation pathways of opioids in children's hair. The project is very interesting and combines both forensic and clinical applications. And hopefully it will help us to distinguish between the application of medically approved fentanyl analogs and illegal fentanyl intake. The analysis of children's hair is challenging as the hair is thin and more porous than adults' hair, and we always end up with a very low amount of hair samples to work with. The hair or nail sample, if collected shortly after birth, can provide detection windows that reflect the time in utero and possibly track exposure during pregnancy, which is, of course, very interesting for research applications and also for clinical applications.

P.N.: Great. So, you mentioned one of the challenges with the analysis of children's hair being very thin. And I'm sure that translates into the level of sensitivity required for the instrumentation. Can you talk about the need for sensitive instrumentation for these types of workflows and how critical it is for your lab to be able to detect those trace levels?

T.B.: Yes, our methods require the detection of very low substance concentrations, as mentioned before. For example, from a single drug exposure or the detection from a very low amount of hair, like in children’s hair. The methods that we use now on the 7500 system from SCIEX allow us to detect fentanyl concentrations in the low picogram range in less than one milligram of hair, which is pretty amazing. And we are now able to also detect fentanyl metabolites at even lower concentrations in children's hair.

P.N.: That's great. It's pretty remarkable, very low detection limits! I was wondering if you could tell us about some of the other panels that you have on your LC-MS/MS platform. You mentioned transitioning from the Triple Quad 6500+ system to the SCIEX 7500 system and talk about some of the other drug panels that you have developed and the sensitivity improvements that you are getting from transitioning from the system.

T.B.: Yeah. We are currently developing methods that include large panels of NPS to detect these substances in hair and also other matrices. We were able to gain sensitivity improvements ten times higher than on the Triple Quad 6500+ system. We also recently published a study investigating hair samples from patients who developed delirium while being hospitalized in the critical care unit. The hair analysis of these patients can provide insights into the past drug use or medication of such patients. Therefore, we are also very interested in developing quick hair testing methods, so-called overnight toxicology, that can also be used in clinical applications. Therefore, we need very sensitive methodology.

P.N.: Thank you for sharing that. It’s very exciting and we look forward to seeing some of the results of this research.

T.B.: Thank you. We are also looking forward to it.

P.N.: And that's a wrap for today's episode on the use of keratinized matrices for low-level detection of drugs and metabolites. A big thank you to my guest, Tina. Thank you for sharing your knowledge on this topic. I really look forward to hearing more about the results of your upcoming projects.

T.B.: Yeah, thank you Pierre for the invitation. It was great to work with you, as always.

P.N.: And again, thanks to the viewers for tuning in and watching this episode. If you want to know more about Tina's work, make sure you click on the link below. I'm going to share a link to an on-demand webinar that Tina recently recorded on hair and nail analysis in forensic applications. I'm also going to drop the direct link to technical notes that we did in collaboration with Tina and her lab.

The technical note showcases the sensitive improvements on the SCIEX 7500 system for a panel of stress markers, including steroid hormones and endocannabinoids. So again, if you want to know more about Tina's research, make sure to check out the two links below.

Thanks for joining us today. In the next episode, we'll be joined by Peng Che. Peng is a doctorate student at The Vrije Amsterdam University in the Netherlands. He'll discuss the benefits of alternative fragmentation techniques, such as electron-activated dissociation (EAD) on the Zeno TOF 7600 system. More specifically, he will discuss how he is using EAD to characterize and identify novel psychoactive substances and their metabolites. So, make sure to tune in for that.

Thank you so much and we'll see you next time.