New forensic lab bridges chemistry and police practice

From research group to operational partner

The laboratory, housed within HIMS, is equipped with two state-of-the-art GC-MS systems provided by Politie Nederland. Researchers and students develop new methods for the rapid chemical identification of drugs and detailed impurity profiling of street samples, using portable spectroscopy, liquid chromatography and NMR analysis. Work is also under way on analytical methods for explosives, accelerants, chemical weapons and gunshot residue.

The collaboration is led by prof. Arian van Asten, chair of Forensic Analytical Chemistry at HIMS, together with dr. Ruben Kranenburg, forensic analytical chemist at Politie Nederland and guest researcher at HIMS. Their work illustrates how deep-tech expertise developed at Amsterdam Science Park finds direct application beyond the campus.

Science with a special mandate

The HIMS Analytical Chemistry group holds a legal exemption to work with small quantities of controlled substances — both hard and soft drugs — for educational and research purposes. This gives master’s students in the Chemistry and Forensic Science programme access to research conditions that closely mirror real-world forensic casework.

The opening ceremony included student presentations to guests from both the university and the police, among them Ruth Kloek, head of the National Forensic Expertise unit (LFOX) at Politie Nederland, and prof. Bas de Bruin, scientific director of HIMS.

Source: UvA website
Picture: HIMS