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Detecting Fake Drugs With A Piece Of Paper

The developing world is awash in substandard or falsified medications, which can directly harm users or deprive them of needed treatment. With internet sales of medications on the rise, people everywhere are increasingly at risk. A team of researchers from the University of Notre Dame has developed a simple, inexpensive paper-based device to screen suspicious medications. To screen for a variety of potential quality issues, the researchers included 12 lanes separated by wax barriers on the paper device. Each lane contained a different set of reagents to detect materials or functional groups found in active pharmaceutical ingredients, degradation products, or common fillers.

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Detectors Materials Medical Sensors Test & Measurement

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    Transcript

    00:00:00 Every year, fake or substandard medications kill more than 300,000 people worldwide. Many of these falsified drugs are dispensed in developing countries, where they can either directly harm users or deprive them of needed treatment. Some estimates suggest that up to 30 percent of medications available in these countries contain substandard ingredients. Often, these fake medications are bulked up with fillers or contain just enough of the real active ingredient to evade detection. And even with the right lab equipment, detection can be costly and time-consuming, which makes it impractical in developing nations. To combat this problem, Marya Lieberman and her team at the University of Norte Dame have created a cheap and simple paper test card that can quickly screen suspicious medications

    00:00:39 in real time. They're presenting their findings at the 252nd national meeting of the American Chemical Society The card costs less than $1, and uses a library of chemical color tests to unmask falsified drugs. Each card has 12 lanes separated by wax barriers. Each lane contains a different set of reagents to detect materials found in active pharmaceutical ingredients. The researchers crush a pill and rub the resulting powder across all 12 lanes, and then dip the bottom of the paper card in water. After just a few minutes, distinctive colors form. The researchers then compare the color pattern from the sample with the color patterns obtained from real pharmaceuticals. The comparison can be done by eye or with an image-analysis program on a smartphone.

    00:01:19 Lieberman says that this new technique could eventually allow doctors, pharmacists and maybe even consumers in these developing countries to quickly and easily detect fake drugs. Headline Science is produced by the American Chemical Society. For more on the latest chemistry headlines. Subscribe to the ACS YouTube channel.