News

Britni Skillman, Ph.D., F-ABFT

Assistant Professor
Department of Forensic Science
College of Criminal Justice
Sam Houston State University
Webpage->

Why are you excited to work with CARFS? CARFS fosters interdisciplinary approaches, allowing me to integrate my expertise in forensic toxicology and novel psychoactive substances with cutting-edge techniques like liquid chromatography mass spectrometry. By working with CARFS, I can help advance the accuracy, efficiency, and reliability of toxicology investigations, ultimately contributing to the expansion of toxicology resources in the field to continue the advancement of forensic science.

What is your inspiration? My inspiration comes from having an equal appreciation for research and for quality assurance. My specific interests are in the growing complexity of forensic toxicology cases, particularly with the emergence of novel psychoactive substances. These compounds can be challenging to identify, and my goal is to develop methods that enhance detection and analysis without compromising the productivity of labs performing traditional casework workflows. I hope to improve detection and validation methods so that the need for traditional drug analysis is still supported with the inclusion of novel substances in testing panels.

Research Interests

• Novel psychoactive substances
• Polydrug trends
• Sedative hypnotics
• Metabolism
• Alternative matrices
• Postmortem toxicology
• Impaired driving
• LC-MS/MS
• HRMS
• Ion suppression/enhancement
• Method validation workflow assessment

Capabilities

• Identification of NPS and emerging drug threats
• Biomarker identification (warfare agents, drugs of abuse)
• Metabolism identification and structural identification
• Drug stability in toxicological matrices
• Human performance toxicology
• Postmortem toxicology/medicolegal death investigation
• Postmortem distribution (PMR)
• Alternative/challenging biological matrices
• Identification of drugs in hair and oral fluid
• Improved HRMS drug screening
• Metabolomics
• Improved methods for cyanide biomarker detection
• Various extraction types (LLE, SPE, lipid clean-up cartridges, SLE, etc.)

Advanced Instrumentation

• High resolution mass spectrometry (liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry) [LC-Q/TOF-MS]
• Liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry [LC-MS/MS]
• Direct-inject/syringe infusion capabilities for LC/MS platforms
• Headspace gas chromatography/flame ionization detection [HS-GC/FID]
• Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry [GC/MS]
• ELISA/Microplate spectrophotometry