Application of advanced analytical methods to study key aspects of health and disease

Considerable advances in the analytical capabilities of modern techniques afford a new horizon in the study of health and disease. Our group have developed and applied a range of advances analytical techniques to study aspects of nutrition, disease mechanisms leading to drug discovery and toxicity associated with foodstuffs and drug abuse.

The aim of this proposal is to apply the latest analytical advances to develop and employ new assays to study health and disease. The programme will employ a range of techniques including LC-MS/MS, ICP-MS and 400 & 600 MHz NMr spectroscopy.

Using this approach, novel assays will be developed to study aspects of diet, health, disease and/or drug use. The project will build on a number of successful strands of research conducted over the past two decades.

These include the a number of key recent findings:-

1. the first assay for social drug use and doping based on hair analysis for >200 drugs or their metabolites [Ref 1],
2. the first assay capable of accurate measurement of 10 forms of vitamin D which allowed full study of the vitamin D metabolome for the first time [Ref 2],
3. the first demonstration of the interaction of foodstuffs with testosterone metabolism [Ref 3],
4. the potential inhibitory effects of drugs on steroid metabolism and also herbal medicine-drug interactions [Ref 4 & 5].

Further details, please see the references below along with the descriptions on my staff web page at:

https://www.kingston.ac.uk/staff/profile/professor-declan-naughton-163/