Lab on a chip

Lab on a Chip video transcript

Facilitator: Alison Beavis is an Associate Lecturer in the School of Chemistry and Forensics at UTS. She’s looking at how to improve forensics in the field. So Alison, what is a Portable Forensics Lab?

Alison: Well basically it involves using equipment that can be placed in to some sort of vehicle. A lot of the police agencies are using small vans or even small trucks and equipping those with state of the art equipment that can help them answer questions at the crime scene which is really important.

Facilitator: So explain to me in more detail how it would be used?

Alison: Well it can be used at a range of different types of crime scenes. They might be a post blast explosion, a crime scene. It could also be used at a clandestine laboratory crime scene and those two are certainly some of the more common, particularly overseas. Here in Australia we haven’t thankfully had the exposure to explosions but certainly the [clan] labs are increasing in frequency.

Facilitator: So the police take it to a crime scene like an explosion or a drug lab to do what specifically?

Alison: They’d be taken to different types of crime scenes where they can provide real time information. So historically what would happen is samples would be collected and they would be taken back to a laboratory for analysis; but what we’re hoping to do more and more in the future is to allow the people at the scene to collect a sample, analyse it at the scene and get some real time information. It can help with leading the investigating officers to find out some information very quickly which can be important as they’re investigating a case.

Facilitator: So is it a little bit like behind the scenes of CSI?

Alison: A little bit. We like to try and distance ourselves from CSI. It’s very much a glamorous world and while there is some glamorous side to what we do it’s certainly a little bit different. We don’t go around chasing the bad guys. We just help the police chase the bad guys.

Facilitator: So say I was a police officer and I was deployed to some kind of crime scene like a drug lab, what kind of equipment that you’re working on would I be taking with me?

Alison: Well we’re hoping in the future that some devices that we’re working on here at UTS will be taken to a crime scene such as a clandestine laboratory. So we’ve been working on what’s known as Lab-on-a-chip Devices. Essentially they’re miniaturised versions of standard laboratory equipment. The miniaturisation aspect is very important when we’re thinking about portable laboratories because we need devices that can fit in to a small van or truck, have low power requirements because often you’re working in non-ideal situations.

Facilitator: What are some of the other challenges?

Alison: Some of the challenges in analytical chemistry in general are how small a sample size can we actually analyse because when you go to a crime scene there could be, it could’ve been raining, there could be any type of weather conditions and actually retrieving evidence can be quite a challenge; and retrieving significant amounts of evidence can be a challenge. So we’re dealing with literally particles of dust and things like that. It’s developing detection methods that are capable of actually detecting whatever it is that we’re trying to look at down to those really, really small levels.

Facilitator: How small are we talking?

Alison: Well the Lab-on-a-chip Device as an example, we can detect down to femtograms of compounds so that’s times 10 to the minus 15 grams. So we’re talking about really small, small amounts.

Facilitator: Do you get to work with police?

Alison: We do get to work with the police on a number of our projects and that’s something that’s quite embedded in a lot of the research here at UTS is the external engagement and it’s very important particularly in forensic science that we do have those collaborators; because ultimately what we’re trying to do is to develop a method that can be used by police agencies around Australia and then hopefully around the world.

Facilitator: Now I’m also told that you get to blow things up?

Alison: We do get to blow things up. That’s probably one of the more exciting things of what we get to do and it’s all in the name of research. We’re trying to detect methods that will detect smaller and smaller amounts of explosive material so the only way we can do that is to go out in to the field and collect samples.

Facilitator: There seems to be a lot of potential for your research?

Alison: Yes, there certainly is a lot of potential across a wide range of areas. That’s the one good thing about analytical chemistry is that it can be used to answer some really fundamental questions and that’s what makes it such an exciting area of chemistry and science in general.

Facilitator: Well Alison Beavis, thank you very much. That was a really interesting interview and good luck with everything.

Alison: Thank you.