Monday, 28 March 4:00pm – 5:00pm

This seminar will be delivered in Online Zoom Please email chemistry.researchsupport@sydney.edu.au for zoom link and password.

Speaker: Dr Richard Bade; The University of Queensland

Host: Dr Jonathan Danon

Title: Facilitating the detection of new psychoactive substances in wastewater

Abstract: New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) are a complex addition to the international drug market. Their initial designation as ‘legal highs’ intimated safe and licit consumption in place of conventional illicit drugs such as methamphetamine, ecstasy, cocaine and cannabis. However, limited toxicity information is available for these substances, with (co-)consumption possibly leading to hospitalization and fatalities. Due to the proliferation of these compounds – by January 2021, more than 1000 NPS had been reported to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime Early Warning Advisory from 126 countries covering all continents – it is imperative to monitor these compounds. This presentation will explore the analytical challenges associated with their detection in wastewater as well as the application of wastewater analysis for temporal and spatial trends of NPS use in Australia and internationally.

Biography: Richard Bade is an ARC DECRA Research Fellow within the Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences. He obtained his PhD from the University Jaume I, Castellon, Spain in 2016, which focussed on analytical tools for the investigation of licit and illicit drug residues in water before joining the Population Health Chemistry Group at the University of South Australia from 2017-2021, where his research focussed on the development of quantitative and qualitative methods for the determination of illicit drugs in wastewater. His current research interests are associated with the development of analytical methods for the determination of new psychoactive substances in wastewater. These methods have been applied locally, nationwide and internationally to provide an insight on their prevalence.