In March we celebrate the achievements of women, so it’s lovely that we have an exceptional woman responding our interview this month. Sarah Wille is a Judicial Expert Forensic Toxicologist, a specialist area of toxicology we don’t often hear from in our interviews. Sarah has been involved with our Young Scientist committee and is also very active with our sister association, TIAFT. Another great interview this month, read on…
Since 2008 I work as a certified Judicial Expert Forensic Toxicologist at the National Institute of Criminalistics and Criminology (NICC) in Brussels, Belgium and this.
The NICC is the Belgian central authority on forensic research and has two main missions. First, it realizes forensic analyses on demand for judicial authorities, in the criminalistic domains of genetics, biology, analytical chemistry, drugs, toxicology, ballistics, and digital information and cybercrime. Second, it conducts scientific studies on crime phenomena to inform criminal policy. Topics of research include police and judicial investigation, prosecution policy, penalty enforcement, juvenile delinquency, etc.
My basic training was Pharmaceutical Sciences (2002), followed by a PhD in Analytical Toxicology at the Forensic laboratory at the Ghent University under the auspice of Prof. Willy Lambert (2008). This gave me the ideal training for my current job.
A day at our laboratory can vary enormously. My main role is to give expert advice for the judicial authorities (this is case work according to ISO 17025 standards), but this role is more complex than it sounds. It consists of managing the analytical laboratory procedures, following up the quality assurance of the analysed batches and helping with troubleshooting in the laboratory, making the expert reports and if requested testifying in court. This of course requires adequate people management to help coordinate the laboratory. A second task is to give courses in forensic toxicology, mainly to the police and judicial authorities. Providing support to other government organizations dealing with drugs and informing the general public is one of our core tasks as well. Finally, another big part of my role is keeping up with novel techniques by doing scientific research in collaboration with external partners and implementing this research in the laboratory to ameliorate our services. As a senior researcher at the Toxicology Unit of the NICC, my main research topics include new psychoactive substances (NPS), alternative matrices, entomo-toxicology, and analytical method development/validation.
On the side, we edit the TIAFT Bulletin since 2016 and occasionally organize a scientific meeting such as the international TIAFT meeting in 2018 in Gent, but also workshops for Young Scientists (TIAFT) from 2009-2019.
Our laboratory does not do fundamental research. However, we try to keep up with new trends, techniques, biomarkers, to make our judicial advice as up to date as possible. Where we can, we create research projects or collaborate with universities to solve problems we see in routine casework or resolve unsolved questions via research. In this regard, we have contributed to validation-guidelines (1,2), have looked into new toxicological matrices such as the use of oral fluid (3-7) and insects (8-10) and have collaborated to improve the knowledge database and detection of New Psychoactive Substances (NPS; 11-14). Moreover, we have established a uniformed way to detect the ethanol marker phosphatidylethanol for driver’s license regrating procedures (15). We also implement innovative management concepts such as LEAN and self-managing teams into our laboratory environment.
High Resolution Mass Spectrometry has been life changing as it enables us to do a fast, sensitive and selective screening of our samples. The main advantage is that we are able to detect NPS in our laboratory.
I always wanted to work as a scientist. However, my first idea was to become a marine biologist in [Jacques] ‘Cousteau’ style (the French Marine Biologist diving into the deep sea). However, several people convinced me to start Pharmaceutical Sciences as there are a lot of research opportunities in pharmaceutical sciences in Belgium. At the end of my studies, the scientific investigator in me awoke again and I wanted to look into the options of analytical chemistry, but in a very practical way and with societal importance.
There are so many things I would like to incorporate in our laboratory if time would let us. Some of these include:
Over the last decades, bio analytics has gone through a period of extensive change driven by technological advances. Due to the development of highly sensitive techniques, the use of alternative matrices or alternative sampling in the field of toxicology has increased enormously.
While blood and urine are still the most common applied toxicological matrices, alternative matrices such as oral fluid (OF) have gained importance. OF can be applied to detect recent drug use and is of interest because the collection can be more advantageous: a non-invasive collection and less possibility for adulteration. We would like to look more into the possibilities of a fast and more selective on-site screening of large batches of oral fluid samples as well as establish biomarkers that can improve the interpretation or look into the ‘quality’ of the obtained sample for analytical confirmation techniques.
Another field of research is the further implementation of micro sampling techniques such as dried blood spots, volumetric absorptive sampling devices, etc. to improve sampling via non-medically trained personnel and improve stability of certain compounds.
Toxicology, and forensic toxicology in particular, has faced many challenges for many years, both analytical and interpretative, especially in relation to an increase in potential drugs of interest. However, as a result of research and technological advancements, we may be closer to solving some of these challenges and discovering new ones. The development of highly sensitive detection techniques and appropriate data processing has enabled the analysis of a wide range of compounds, now in a wide range of matrices. This includes the identification of new toxicologically relevant markers and greater understanding of the role of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics to assist with interpretation of toxicological findings.
It is clear that the future of toxicology will be multi-disciplinary and utilise developments in information technology along with statistics to provide possible solutions to interpretation of large data sets and scenarios to the benefit of medical or judicial decisions. Someday we may be able to utilise the detection of drugs, metabolites and biomarkers in multiple matrices in conjunction with genetic information and other parameters to interpret the significance of the findings in both in life and post-mortem situations. We will get there by continued collaboration and research in toxicology with a view to developments in other disciplines and use of technological advances and innovations.
We may not be there yet, but we are heading in the right direction. And whilst certainty may never be achieved, we will be more aware of possible sources of uncertainties and thus be able to constantly but steadily improve our final outcome.
COVID-19 has had an enormous impact. The amount of casework has increased enormously, and this is combined with less people in the laboratory as we have to maintain distance and work at home as much as possible. Getting a team running and informed all the time, while not seeing each other as much is difficult, but is manageable via all kinds of video conferencing tools. One thing for me, that was the hardest was to combine work-life with two small children at home. Juggling with work-life balance has been harder than ever; luckily there is support at home.
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