UP DARL’s Liquid Chromatography Quadrupole Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (LC-QTOF/MS)

June 30, 2019 — A drug testing laboratory called the UP Drugs of Abuse Research Laboratory (UP DARL) was inaugurated at the UP Manila College of Pharmacy (CP) on 4 June 2019.

It is the University’s contribution to the government’s efforts to understand, control, and minimize/neutralize drug abuse. The launching was part of a two-day Conference on Substances of Abuse in the Philippines held on June 4-5, 2019 at the CP’s Emilio T. Yap Auditorium. 

Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Chair Jose Prospero E. De Vera and Dangerous Drugs Board Undersecretary and Permanent Board Member Benjamin P. Reyes, were guests at the event, together with representatives from the Department of Health (DOH), Philippine National Police (PNP), Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), and National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). UP Vice President for Academic Affairs Cynthia Rose Bautista and UP Manila Chancellor Carmencita D. Padilla led the officials from UP Manila, specifically the Colleges of Pharmacy and Medicine,  National Poison Management and Control Center (NPMCC), and University of California San Francisco. Its Php 100-million endowment fund from the CHED–Philippine-California Advanced Research Institutes (CHED-PCARI) program will be used for capacity-building and procurement of equipment so as to continuously meet local and international standards.  

Former CP Dean and professor Dr. Monet M. Loquias  leads the team as the Project Leader together with CM professor and NPMCC Head Dr. Carissa Paz C. Dioquino as Co-Project Leader. The project’s  Principal Investigator is Dr. Roy Roberto L. Gerona  of UCSF and CP Assistant Professor Joanna V. Toralba and CM Asst Prof. Ailyn M. Yabes are Co-Investigators. 

The UP DARL envisions to be one of the confirmatory drug testing laboratories in the country and a research facility which can be tapped by government and private agencies for medico-legal information. 

The government states that there are millions of illicit drug users in the country. Both traditional illegal drugs and new designer drugs are rampant but are not widely reported because screening laboratories that provide less precise results only test for methamphetamine (shabu), amphetamine, marijuana, ecstasy, opiates, and cocaine. 

The UP DARL will use the state-of-the-art Liquid Chromatography Quadrupole Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (LC- QTOF/MS). According to Chancellor Padilla, UP Manila is the only academic institution in the country that will use this for drugs of abuse research.  

Although all of the techniques being used by the confirmatory labs are highly sensitive, the latest  LC- QTOF/MS can (1) provide confirmatory testing results in less than a day compared to the one week waiting time in other labs,  and (2) perform targeted and non-targeted identification of more than 100 compounds both licit and illicit.  Such capabilities are useful not only in clinical and medico-legal settings but also in doing researches and routine clinical analysis on substance abuse in the Philippines.

According to Dr. Loquias, “UP-DARL will facilitate the identification of a wider class of drug compounds not presently captured by existing testing laboratories in the Philippines.” 

Dr. Dioquino added that the facility’s initial research project will be a profile of drug abuse in the country. It will provide the necessary data to formulate a more informed national drug control policy.

In the offing as well is a locally produced, hence, cheaper drug testing kit that can identify more than a hundred illegal substances in individuals. The current kit can only detect 4-5 illicit substances.  

Fedelynn Jemena | Published in UP Manila Healthscape May – June 2019