FORENSIC TOXICOLOGY

Catalog description

This course will discuss the fundamental concepts of forensic toxicology and its application in the legal and biomedical fields. In the judicial scenario and to determine causes of death it is important to evaluate the presence and potential relation of poisons or chemical agents with the cause of death. The course will present the fundaments of postmortem toxicology, forensic drug testing, and human performance toxicology as the three major subdivisions of the discipline. Isolation and acquisition of appropriate biological specimens, chemical substances, or medication from biological matrices such as blood, urine, saliva, humor vitreo us and tissues will be discussed. Appropriate sample management to guaranty integrity of the samples will be discussed and demonstrated. The main analytical techniques applied in the field to analyzed common drugs and medications on human fluids will be desc ribed such as liquid and gas chromatography, mass spectrometry and immunoassays, among others. Integration of the obtained toxicological analyses into a court report will be presented.