The Analytical and Forensic Science Research Group develops research and provides high level of doctoral and post-doctoral training in the fields of Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, Chemistry for Health and Forensic Science. Chemical, biochemical, pharmacological and pharmaceutical outputs include advanced trace chemical analysis, diverse analytical capabilities, and the full identification of chemical compositions and unknown materials, together with chemical solving processes. This group involves a network of academic staff, including experienced analytical chemists, biochemists, synthetic organic chemists, pharmaceutical scientists, and metabolomics-based statisticians, and forensics scientists and is equipped with a very wide range of analytical facilities.
The extensive expertise and experience of staff in this group has facilitated the development of a culture-of-quality that serves to promote and maintain the recruitment of doctoral training programme students. The multicomponent high-resolution NMR, liquid chromatographic- and liquid chromatographic/mass spectrometric (LC/MS) analyses of biofluids and tissues for diagnostic and prognostic purposes; bio- and chemometrics, and metabolomics, including NMR-, LC- and LC/MS-based exploratory data analysis and pattern recognition techniques (applied to the diagnosis of cancer, inflammatory disorders, lysosomal storage diseases, and oral health conditions, for example, together with determinations of the therapeutic efficacies of drugs and healthcare products, etc.) has been explored in detail, and there is currently a series of investigations focused on cancer chemotherapy, antimicrobial drug resistance, and the study of natural products as templates for future drug design.