Forensic chemical and forensic toxicological investigation of psychoactive synthetic cocaine derivatives

• Applicant: Dr. Tom Richard Sundermann
• Subject Area: Pharmacy ; Public Health, Healthcare Research, Social and Occupational Medicine
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 450904012

Synthetic cocaine derivatives are currently marketed on diverse internet websites as legal cocaine alternatives. These psychoactive substances (Troparil, Dichloropane, RTI-55) are offered as „research chemicals" and have not been studied systematically. Because of missing specific identification methods, a consumption is currently not detected by forensic-toxicological analysis.The aim of this project is the forensic investigation of synthetic cocaine derivatives to evaluate the quality of the sold drugs, identify production methods in clandestine drug laboratories, and detect their consumption in biological matrices specifically. For this purpose, modern instrumental-analytical methods for the examination of authentic drug samples and the identification and quantification of synthetic cocaine derivatives in different biological matrices will be developed and validated. Some required reference standards (phenyltropanes, stereoisomers, metabolites, and internal standards) will be synthesized with different synthesis strategies and the phase I metabolism of cocaine derivatives will be investigated. Through the determination of the cross-reactivity in different immunochemical assays and supplementation of mass spectrometric substance libraries an initial identification of drug users by police and forensic-toxicological laboratories will be ensured. Analytical methods developed in this project might help to discover and characterize new, so far unknown substances on the highly variable market of new psychoactive substances and thereby support their coverage in the forensic daily routine.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants