Log in
Material characterisation research in the UOA has helped Orchid Cellmark Europe Ltd (Cellmark) to deliver forensic services to 85% of the police forces in England and Wales. The work of the UOA has helped Cellmark to participate successfully in National Forensic Framework tendering exercises and to double their market share. The work of the UOA in partnership with Cellmark has been accredited by the UK Accreditation Service and the UOA now provides an average of 360 forensic glass analyses and 60 gunshot residue analyses to Cellmark each year. These analyses have secured, amongst others, convictions for perpetrators of serious gun crime.
The Department of Chemistry at UCL has pioneered the use of Raman spectroscopy (RS) for the identification of pigments in and the in situ examination of objects that are of artistic, cultural, or historical importance. Until recently this was a relatively unknown and rarely used technique in heritage science. RS is now used regularly by conservators worldwide and has become an important analysis tool in museums and libraries including the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Collaboration between the British Library and UCL was highlighted by the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, helping to promote further collaboration between universities and museums. The use of RS in heritage science has also benefited manufacturers of RS equipment, and has led to enhanced understanding of the histories and care requirements of a wide range of artefacts.
Professor Batchelder at Leeds undertook key aspects in the research, design, development and application of Raman microscopes. His partnership with Renishaw plc (Spectroscopy division) led to the development of a new generation of imaging Raman microscope, with performance improved by an order of magnitude. This instrument not only offers dramatically faster performance, meaning spectra could be acquired in seconds rather than tens of minutes, but requires much less laboratory space and maintenance, and offers a wider range of performance compared to other systems on the market. Consequently, the Renishaw system has been the world's best-selling research Raman microscope 2008-13. Wide impact has been generated from the economic benefits of the emergence of the Raman microscope products, from their application within the customer base in terms of improved imaging performance and from the fact that these instruments have since found new applications in a wide range of fields from space research to Forensic Science (see section 4), effectively expanding the customer base.
Queen's University Belfast has developed a number of biocatalytic processes for the production of pharmaceutical intermediates which have been applied commercially. The most significant involved Vernakalant, a new drug for treatment of the most common form of irregular heartbeat, now available in the EU, and currently awaiting approval in the USA and Canada. In addition, QUB has sold £300,000 worth of bioproducts and through the collaborations with Almac Sciences facilitated the initiation of their biocatalysis business which currently is a multi-million revenue earner for Almac Sciences and employs 30 staff, including 15 PhD graduates from the Queen's group.
Global drug crime involving the illicit production of synthetic drugs and the emergence of new legal highs has a detrimental effect on our society and its citizens at all levels. In order to address this global problem, research was conducted that resulted in three significant impacts over the assessment period. These were:
(1) New capability for law enforcement agencies by provision of new tools to identify specific manufacturing routes of illicit drugs and link this back to criminal intelligence data,
(2) Improvement in the accuracy and reliability of identification of legal highs for use by legal practitioners, and
(3) The influencing of policy and protocol for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime on addressing legal high drug identification.
The research has underpinned the implementation of new analytical methodologies now routinely used in Malaysia and in over 900 drug sample identification cases in Scotland alone across the assessment period.
Geoforensics in the School of Geography, Archaeology & Palaeoecology (GAP) has developed three principal avenues of inquiry for improving the application of Earth Science research in criminal investigations: (a) development of strategies for the search and recovery of buried/submerged items; (b) advancing the use of spatial sampling systems at crime scenes; and (c) furthering the non-destructive testing of trace evidence. The impact of our research is advising law enforcement organisations worldwide on improved procedures for collecting evidence at crime scenes and directly working with such bodies in gathering, analysing and testing evidence during criminal investigations. Evidence has been presented as expert witnesses in court cases for defence and prosecution (e.g. environment agencies, police forces, law firms), and training has been provided to professional forensic scientists employed by various law enforcement bodies including the UK and Irish police, Colombian Forensic Laboratory, Australian Federal Police and US Army/FBI.
In a series of papers published from 1999 on, Aitken (Maxwell Institute) and collaborators applied Bayesian statistics to develop a methodology for the quantification of judicial evidence derived from forensic analyses. They proposed and implemented procedures for (i) determining the optimal size of samples that should be taken from potentially incriminating material (such as drugs seized); and (ii) the estimation of likelihood ratios characterising evidence provided by multivariate hierarchical data (such as the chemical composition of crime-scene samples). Their procedures have been recommended in international guideline documents (including a 2009 publication by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) and have been routinely used by forensic science laboratories worldwide since 2008. The research has therefore had an impact on the administration of justice, leading to a better use of evidence and accompanying judicial and economic benefits. Examples are given from laboratories in Australia, Sweden and The Netherlands.
Clench's research on Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption Ionisation - Mass Spectrometry Imaging (MALDI-MSI) technologies has impacted directly on pharmaceutical industry practice regarding studies of drug distribution studies in biological tissues, providing increased information, more rapidly. Companies have benefitted from long-term relationships with Clench's Bioanalysis Research Group and seek its expertise for consultancy purposes. Former members of Clench's group hold key positions in industry, implementing and further developing these technologies. Francese has had significant success in applying MALDI-MSI to analysis of latent fingermarks for forensic applications benefiting Home Office scientists and crime scene investigation units. Research advances in MALDI-MSI by Clench and Francese are patented and exploited via licensing.
Research carried out at the Centre for Forensic Linguistics (CFL) at Aston has achieved the following significant impacts:
Research on the spectroscopy of materials conducted by Prof. Dunstan has led to novel innovations for the Renishaw Raman microscope that have been patented and marketed by Renishaw plc, a UK-based global instrumentation company, as part of their inVia microscope range in the form of the NeXT filter. These innovations have provided the company with significant commercial advantage over their competitors and allowed the pharmaceuticals industry to develop applications for this technology in the areas of amorphous drugs, stability testing and polymorph screening. Dunstan's spectroscopy research has also enabled him to work with Absolute Action Ltd, a company which provides bespoke lighting systems for museums, galleries, public spaces and homes. The commercial value of contracts won by Absolute Action between 2008/13 that relied on Dunstan's technical innovations is estimated to be £1m. Dunstan designed the lighting technology for the Hope Diamond displayed in the Smithsonian Institution (USA), the Memorial to Japanese-American Patriotism (USA), and the gemstone collection in the Natural History Museum (UK). These lighting systems have enhanced the viewing experience of the public and attracted new visitors to the museums throughout the REF assessment period.