九州影院

Q&A with Harm Reduction

What was your role within the team?

Jenny Scott: My role is to explore implementation of the device into the real world. Specifically, as a clinician, I consider how the technology can be deployed to improve health, reduce harm and support individuals to live better quality lives.

Chris Pudney: I am lead investigator on the project.

Matthew Gardner: I鈥檓 a PhD student working on developing testing of synthetic drugs in sealed e-cigarettes.

Rachael Andrews: I鈥檓 a post-doctoral research associate.

What were the biggest challenges in this project?

Chris Pudney: Drawing together strands of research across chemistry, computer science, engineering, psychology and criminology. Finding the right partners to take the research out of the lab and to be willing to trial our prototype devices in the real world. Once we had good contacts it was much easier, but that initial step to working out who to talk too took a long time.

Rachael Andrews: Identifying what problems were the most useful to try to tackle was a challenge and involved a great deal of discussion with different stakeholders. Ultimately this gave us the understanding of what needed to be developed.

What different strengths did different people bring to the team?

Chris Pudney: Looking at the team as a whole, we have folk from a very broad range of scientific disciplines and academic support staff and then policing, security, and charities. I like to think we all leaned on each other to achieve real-world change. The common attribute of all the people on the team is a commitment to pushing academic work into the real world and not seeing the hurdles that pop up as showstoppers, but something that we just have to navigate.

Why is this work so important and exciting?

Nick Burnett: It allows us to triage substances seized especially where a user has had an adverse reaction from taking an illicit drug and identify potential risks. This then provides live information to us and we can liaise with our local drug treatment agencies and provide live data and issue a drug warning keeping the user cohort safe.

Jenny Scott: The illicit drug market is completely unregulated which means there's no quality control or safe processes in manufacturing. This means people who use drugs face all sorts of threats from toxic substances and variability in dose in the drug supply. Point-of-care testing of drug substances is important to give temporal information that can inform decision making in the moment, whether that decision is being made by healthcare staff, prison staff or people who use drugs themselves.

Matthew Gardner: For me, one of the best outcomes was the work with schools, where we used our technology to show the issue of drugs in e-cigarettes and then we were immediately able to provide that same technology to local police forces and councils to provide them with the means to track an emerging threat.

Rachael Andrews: We see our work out in the real world making a difference to how people work with vulnerable groups, but we hope also making a positive impact on people鈥檚 lives.

Where do you see the biggest impact of this technology/research being?

Jenny Scott: At the moment it is impactful within the criminal justice system, but I can see huge potential in direct to client drug checking within drug services or similar setting going forwards.

Chris Pudney: If we can use these kinds of rapid technologies to triage what we are worried about in the community, we can then have an essentially real-time intelligence picture that can support harm reduction messaging. Particularly as the landscape of drug use changes so rapidly, it feels like the need is to move to more immediate intelligence gathering.

How will this work be used in real life applications?

Nick Burnett: From a law enforcement side, having this technology has allowed us to work collaboratively with our drug treatment service and drug users to test drugs. It has allowed us to build bridges so that we are not just thinking about prosecution but we want to keep the user demographic safe and prevent unavoidable drug-related deaths.

Jenny Scott: To give instant information on the content of drug samples and vapes. The drug market is changing very rapidly and instant information to inform decision that need to be made quickly, or at least cannot wait for laboratory information, is only going to become even more important.

Rachael Andrews: Supporting schools to deal with the risk of drugs being consumed via e-cigarettes in schools. This is already a huge issue and we can expect it to only grow.

How do you see this work developing over the next few years, and what is next for this technology/research?

Nick Burnett: Keeping the library up to date with the ever-changing and increasing drug market. Jenny Scott: There is several angles. A study to demonstrate the impact of the device in direct to client drug checking is going to be important. Also, the work to keep young people safe by understanding drug vaping and developing effective interventions on the back of the analytical data is also going to be key.

Chris Pudney: I would like to see us continue to expand the range of drugs that can be detected, but also to keep focusing on e-cigarettes. I sense this mode of drug use is going to become ever more popular and the presents quite a few risks to people. Similarly, drug use in prisons is so complex, I would like us to look at how we deploy technology there to better support those settings.

What inspires or motivates your team?

Nick Burnett: Keeping people safe and being able to issues credible live warnings regarding what certain drugs contain.

Jenny Scott: Everyone has the same goal in mind, to deploy useful technology to save lives and improve health. The team all get on well and understand what each other contributes.

Chris Pudney: Seeing the technologies we have created being used in the real world and making a difference is really rewarding. I think also working with the police and drug and alcohol services and having them hand-in-glove with what we develop is a relationship I really value.

What is the importance of collaboration in the chemical sciences?

Jenny Scott: Collaboration as I see it is essential to turn discoveries into something useful.

Matthew Gardner: This project shows that collaboration can fast track academic work to real world use. Looking beyond just our narrow disciplines and working effectively together is really powerful.

What does good research culture look like or mean to you?

Jenny Scott: Good research culture is where there are no egos and lots of inquisitive minds. Where we recognise that a diverse workforce strengthens science and fosters progress.

How can scientists try to improve the environmental sustainability of research? Can you give us any examples from your own experience or context?

Rachael Andrews: Having a clear understanding of the problem you are trying to tackle from the outset decreases waste an increases efficiency, meaning the work has a lower environmental impact to get to the goal.

What advice would you give to a young person considering a career in the chemical sciences?

Chris Pudney: Just do the things you are passionate about. Everything else will fall into place.