Illicit drug use and addiction is a wide-reaching crisis. After only a few hours, some illicit drugs become undetectable because the body metabolizes it quickly. Having an efficient onsite test that can be utilized by officers or EMTs is necessary for countering this problem. The common techniques used for detecting drugs like gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, high-performance liquid chromatography, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay are time-consuming, difficult to understand without a chemistry background, and not cost-efficient.<br/>Silica nanoparticles were used instead of nanoparticles made of metals due to their accessibility and inexpensive nature. The procedure used to produce the silica nanoparticles is based on the procedures described by Zhixue Zhou, Yan Du, and Shaojun Dong. The nanoparticle has a hollow core that is filled with a biological fluorescent dye that, when in the presence of the target drug, will either be enhanced or quenched.<br/>A DNA aptamer, a biologically specific molecule, is attached to the fluorescent-cored silica nanoparticle.  DNA aptamers only interact with a specific target drug molecule. When the nanoparticles interact with the target drug molecule, a change in fluorescence is observed. Spectra of the nanoparticles will be monitored using infrared spectroscopy, NMR, and fluorescence spectroscopy.

Fluorescent cored silica nanoparticles for the detection of illicit drugs

Fall 2022 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch in mid-September.

ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.