FACTA Newsletter: December 2017

The FACTA committee was proud to welcome over 130 delegates to Melbourne for our 2017 meeting, held between the 19th and 22nd of November. The event started with the welcome reception held on the 35th floor of the Sofitel, with the amazing views over Melbourne providing a wonderful backdrop. The meeting itself kicked off on Monday with the first of three very informative and entertaining keynote presentations by our distinguished guest Dr Simon Elliot (UK), from Alere (now Abbott). Over the course of the meeting we heard some excellent presentations on a wide range of subjects including novel psychoactive substances (NPS), emerging prescription medications, bacterial degradation and other factors affecting post-mortem samples. Tim Scott gave a very thought provoking presentation around the issues of limit of detection and limit of reporting that is becoming a discussion point for many laboratories with gains in instrument sensitivity and the wider range of substances detected by high-resolution mass spectrometry. It was pleasing to see a number of our student members presenting high quality work from honours and PhD projects. The meeting concluded with past-president Olaf Drummer’s keynote on hair testing, its limitations and the difficulties encountered in interpretation. We would like to thank all of our sponsors who kindly contributed and supported the meeting; it would not have been possible without them.

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