Avoid chemical submission with a sensor that returns the drink fluorescently.

BarcelonaIn one out of every three sexual assaults in Spain, the victim has been drugged. Now, a group of researchers from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) has taken an important step towards developing a tool that will easily detect if someone has slipped drugs into a drink in the near future.

The team of scientists has developed a new sensor that can detect the presence of scopolamine, a liquid substance informally known as burundanga and it is one of the most commonly used drugs in drug-facilitated sexual assaults. If the sensor detects the presence of this drug, it causes the scopolamine-laced beverage to fluoresce.

The research results have been published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition And the sensor is already patented. The research also involved the CIBER Network for Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN), the Príncipe Felipe Research Center (CIPF), the Jaume I University (UJI), and the La Fe Health Research Institute in Valencia. Vicente Martí, a researcher at the Interuniversity Institute for Molecular Recognition and Technological Development (IDM) at the UPV, explains that "scocolamine is a substance difficult to detect with conventional methods, especially when it is found in beverages." For this reason, the group of scientists set out to "develop new, simple tools that allow for immediate detection of its presence." As detailed by the director of the IDM, Ramón Martínez Máñez, the new sensor works very simply: when the drug comes into contact with the sensor, a reaction occurs that releases a fluorescent substance. As he describes it, this mechanism "generates a very clear light signal," and its intensity is proportional to the amount of scopolamine introduced into the drink. "The more scopolamine there is, the more fluorescent the signal becomes, allowing us not only to detect its presence but also to estimate its quantity. And all of this in less than five minutes," the researcher emphasizes.

A box that captures molecules

The sensor developed by researchers at the UPV (Polytechnic University of Valencia) is based on a "molecular box," a chemical structure designed to recognize and capture specific molecules. In this case, the device has been designed to interact with and capture scopolamine in a highly selective manner. The researchers explain that their system has a sophisticated chemical design that allows the sensor to detect very low quantities of the drug, making it "especially useful for the rapid analysis of suspected substances, both in preventative contexts and after a possible assault." The UPV team is now working to develop a device that incorporates this sensor to detect scopolamine in substances such as drinks, urine, or saliva. Furthermore, the researchers are also developing similar sensors for the detection of other drugs.