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Tobacco and alcohol use during pregnancy is a serious public health concern, resulting in adverse obstetrical and neonatal outcomes including miscarriage, preeclampsia, low birth weight, preterm delivery, fetal growth restriction, decreased head circumference, placenta abruption, and facial abnormalities. Meconium is a good matrix for in utero drug exposure assessment in pregnancies carried to term. Although meconium formation begins as early as 13 weeks, other methods must assess earlier exposure. In this study, we examined whether analysis of fetal liver and placenta from electively terminated pregnancies utilizing solid-phase extraction could determine exposure patterns during the second trimester.

UCT’s long chain C30 SPE was employed to analyze drugs in bottlefly larvae. The research aimed to determine whether varying concentrations of warfarin impacts the development of blue bottlefly larvae and to determine whether warfarin levels in this organism can be correlated to drug concentrations in tissues eaten by the larvae. This research was presented by Richard L. Harries et al., at  the UKIAFT annual meeting in Dublin.

In a study published in Drug Testing and Analysis, J. Czerwinska et al., (doi: 10.1002/dta.2525), developed a liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method using UCT’s Selectra® PFPP LC column for the simultaneous quantification of mephedrone and five of its phase I in human whole blood after extraction with UCT’s Xtrackt® solid phase extraction (SPE) columns. Mephedrone’s stability in whole blood has been previously investigated but this is the first-time stability of its metabolites has been assessed, indicating -20°C to be the recommended storage condition for all analytes.