Chemistry Colloquium: Douglas Albright: Wed, Apr 03, 2024

Douglas Albright will be the guest speaker for the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry Colloquium. Douglas Albright is a Forensic Chemist in the Trace Examination Section of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.

The  fundamental  mission  of  the  Forensic  Chemistry  Center  (FCC)  is  to  protect  the  public  health  by  providing analytical approaches, rapid development of methodology and expert scientific evaluations in support of investigations involving the safety of foods, drugs, and other FDA‐regulated products.  
The FCC provides expert technical support and analyses for the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations (OCI) and for many high profile and emergency FDA regulatory samples to protect the consumer from fraudulent and harmful products.  This full‐service laboratory provides rapid response and specialized analytical  services  in  forensic  chemistry  and  molecular/microbiology  related  to  product  tampering,  counterfeiting, counterterrorism, adulteration/contamination, and product composition.  
The  FCC  uses  a  variety  of  separation  and  detection  techniques  to  identify  unknown/non‐targeted  chemical substances and quantitate targeted analytes. These include microchemical tests, gas and liquid chromatography  with  mass  spectrometric  detection,  capillary  electrophoresis,  nuclear  magnetic  resonance,  and  high‐performance  liquid  chromatography.  The  laboratory  employs  light  microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, image analysis, variable wavelength light source analysis and Raman and near  infrared  imaging  to  examine  samples.  The  FCC  conducts  elemental  analyses  using  x‐ray  fluorescence,  atomic  absorption  spectrometry,  inductively  coupled  plasma  mass  spectrometry  and energy dispersive x‐ray analysis.