Designer Drug ID methods sought.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse is seeking new ways to detect use of so-called "designer drugs" such as K2/Spice and Bath Salts based on their effects on the human body. Because "designer drugs" evolve constantly available structure-based drug screens. "This presents a substantial complication to traditional toxicology screens conducted in emergency rooms and to drug testing laboratories, whose assays rely on either immunoassays or mass-spectrometry to detect specific agents," NIDA officials said. The institute intends to fund grants to researchers who are developing biofluid drug screens based on pharmacological activity of these designer drugs. The tests should be noninvasive and able to detect quantities of illicit materials or metabolites in a range of concentrations typically found in biofluids of substance users within a few days of use.