Speaker
Description
Hair remains an invaluable biological screening material due to its numerous advantages over urine, blood, and other biological screening materials. Its intricate physico-chemical properties provide a wealth of insights into a person’s diet, origin, and even health. Its ability to store chronological exposure to xenobiotics for application in forensic toxicology and drug abuse studies, its resistance to environmental degradation, and ease of sampling and transport further amplifies its potential as a powerful forensic screening tool. Considering the burgeoning potential of hair in forensic analysis, this talk will aim to answer the following: What role can accelerator-based techniques play to advance hair forensic analysis? Hair morphology for example curliness affects the incorporation of xenobiotics such as toxic metals and drugs into its chemical makeup – how can accelerator-based techniques unravel the hair ionome and differentiate between the external and internal hair region ionome more reflective of ingestion and less affected by surface contaminants that may not be removed with washing? Why is multidimensional hair analysis using accelerator-based and benchtop techniques crucial to amplify the full potential of hair physico-chemical screening to robustly answer intricate forensic questions? If scalp hair may not be available for sampling due to alopecia, could body hair serve as an alternative screening tool based on multidimensional physico-chemical analysis with synchrotron and benchtop techniques? In addition, the presentation will highlight studies focused on the use of advanced techniques including accelerator-based for wildlife hair forensics, the effect of hair treatments on the hair ionome, and hair molecular analysis.
