NPS Reform project | Project partners

Chiron AS

Chiron

Organisation Type: R&D Performing SME

Project Funding: The work in this project is funded by The Norwegian Research Council

Chiron AS provides the scientific community worldwide with sophisticated solutions for difficult chemical analysis. Since 1983 Chiron has supplied reference standards, fine chemicals and reagents for toxicological, pharmaceutical, environmental, food safety, petroleum and geochemical analysis. Chiron’s offering consists of more than 15,000 unique products, and if you can’t find what you are looking for, Chiron also provide a custom synthesis service for microgram to kilogram quantities. Chiron is headquartered in Trondheim, Norway, has a UK subsidiary, and operates though a competent global network of distributors. Many years of investment, the enthusiasm and pioneering team spirit of its staff, and a close cooperation with academic institutions and customers worldwide has bought Chiron to the forefront of analytical chemistry.

Find out more about Chiron at www.chiron.no/en

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Jon Eigill Johansen (Project Coordinator (PC))

Jon has a background in in organic chemistry: synthesis, isolation, and structural elucidation. He completed his masters (1972) and PhD (1976) in Carotenoid Chemistry with professor Liaaen-Jensen at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim, before attending the University of California, Berkeley for a two year postdoc with professor Henry Rapoport on indole alkaloid synthesis. After he made a second postdoc at the ETH, Zürich in prebiotic Chemistry with professor Albert Eschenmoser. After three years working on homogeneous catalysis at SINTEF in Trondheim he established his first company, Chiron Laboratories, in 1983. Jon has extensive experience in project planning and development and have led his companies and numerous international projects to successful results. The current company Chiron AS is involved in the production of certified reference materials (CRMs) for petroleum, environmental, food safety, and toxicology analysis, as well as the scale up of key compounds.

Jenny Button (Exploitation and Dissemination Manager (EDM))

Jenny had a background in clinical and forensic toxicology spanning 20 years. She started her career at St George’s University of London, delivering routine therapeutic drug monitoring services and managing GLP clinical drug trials. Later she progressed to head up the Coroner’s post-mortem toxicology service. In 2010 Jenny joined the UK Forensic Science Service as a Reporting Officer for criminal toxicology. Now Jenny works with Chiron, supporting laboratories around the world in sourcing high quality analytical standards for drug, environmental, petroleum and food safety analysis. Jenny has an advanced GNVQ in health and social care, a first class degree in biomedical science and a post graduate diploma in forensic medical science. She has co-authored several peer reviewed articles, focussing largely on the analysis of new emerging drugs, and has written a book chapter on the Use of Reference Materials in Toxicology.

Huiling Liu

Huiling has a background in organic chemistry and synthesis spanning 30 years. She has a master’s degree in chemical engineering, with specialism in organic chemistry and the synthesis of pesticides. She started her career as lecturer at Shenyang Pharmaceutical University in China, teaching organic chemistry and experimental organic chemistry, before she moved to the Tsukuba University in Japan for a research assignment in metallic organic chemistry. Huiling completed her PhD in organic chemistry at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 2001, focusing on enzymatic catalysis (biocatalysis) in organic synthesis and the synthesis of enantiomerically pure pharmaceutical products. Huiling joined Chiron in 2001 after her PhD, as researcher to develop reference materials for environmental, food safety, petroleum and pharmaceuticals/drugs analysis. She now works as R&D manager and has been leading many research projects including those focussing on POP’s, PAH and petroleum standards as well as pharmaceuticals, opiates and new psychoactive substances (NPS). These have involved both synthesis of the native compounds and stable isotopes. From 2019 Huiling additionally took up a professorship with NTNU. She has supervised 2 masters students and 1 PhD student, and now oversees an industry PhD student.

Matthew Connolly

Matthew has a background in organic chemistry and synthesis spanning almost 15 years. He graduated in 2007 with a first-class master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Oxford and, in 2011, received a PhD in organic chemistry from the same institution, with a project entitled “Selective Routes to Substituted Dihydropyridones.” After a 2-year postdoctoral appointment at the University of Sheffield, where he worked on enantioselective palladium-catalysis, he joined Chiron AS as a research scientist in 2013. His work at Chiron has focussed on the development of reference materials for environmental, petroleum and pharmaceutical/NPS analysis, including the synthesis of stable isotope labelled internal standards. Matthew has published five peer-reviewed papers on synthetic methods in organic chemistry and has supervised several master’s students both at Oxford and Sheffield.

Vilde Teksum

Vilde graduated from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 2020, and joined Chiron the same year. She has a master’s degree in organic chemistry, and her thesis focused on developing kinase inhibitors for cancer therapy.

Linköping University

Organisation Type: University

Project Funding: The work in this project is funded by, Vinnova; Sweden's Innovation Office

Linköping University (LiU) is one of Sweden’s larger academic institutions and among those that offer the largest number of professional degree programs. Research is conducted within a variety of disciplines, with strong internationally recognized research environments. The University has a strong research in forensic science and a specific Strategic Research Area in Forensic Sciences. The research is focused on forensic toxicology and forensic genetics with a specific aims of a rapid and pre-emptive strategy to reduce the harm of New Psychoactive Substances. The research branch of Chemistry, cover all traditional areas of chemistry. The Organic chemistry program have extensive experience in organic synthesis and has throughout the years been participating in projects concerning (i) functionalized oligothiophene derivatives, (ii) fucoidan-mimetic glycopolymers for biomaterials, (iii) glycosylated porphyrin-oligothiophene conjugates, (iv) diterpenes and terpenoids (v), trans-Stilbene derivatives. In recent years, collaboration between LiU and forensic laboratories regarding New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) has been very fruitful leading to numerous new discoveries in their metabolism and mechanism of action and lead to several implemented testing methods in the forensic routine. Within this collaboration, LiU has gained extensive experience in developing and conducting synthesis of native synthetic cannabinoids, fentanyls and cathinones as well as metabolites of such compounds.

Find out more about VU at www.liu.se

Svante Vikingsson

Svante is an analytical chemist and forensic toxicologists with a background in therapeutic drug monitoring and the study of new psychoactive substances. He obtained a PhD in Medical Science from Linköping University in 2012 and currently works as a toxicologist at the National Board of Forensic Medicine in Sweden as well as associate professor in forensic toxicology at Linköping University. He is experienced in in-vitro studies of new psychoactive substances including metabolism and receptor activation studies. He is a member of the NPS committee of The International Association of Forensic Toxicologists (TIAFT) and the Designer Drugs Committee of the Society of Forensic Toxicologists (SOFT) and has authored over 40 scientific papers.

Henrik Green

Henrik is an associate professor and a principle investigator working both at Linköping University and the National Board of Forensic Medicine. He is a Master in Engineering Biology with a PhD in Clinical Pharmacology, and excellent combination for working in the field of forensic toxicology. He is experienced in toxicological, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies of new psychoactive substances including metabolism, reactive metabolites and receptor activation studies. He is currently the research strategist in forensic toxicology and genetics as well as the chairman of the Strategic Research Area in Forensic Sciences at LiU. He has published more than 90 papers in peer-reviewed journals. He holds a grant portfolio of about 24 million SEK in total, has supervised 7 PhD until their defense, and is currently supervising 6. He is the principle investigator of several new and innovative studies in the field of forensic science.

Xiongyu Wu

Xiongyu Wu has a background in organic chemistry and synthesis spanning more than 20 years. He received his Ph.D. degree in Organic Chemistry in 2000 from Sun Yat-Sen University, China. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Uppsala University during 2001-2007. After that he worked at Karo Bio AB as a research scientist from 2007 to 2012. In 2013 he started his research at Linköping University as a principal research engineer. His research interests focus on potassium ion channel openers with application in the treatment of epilepsy, fluorescent molecules for biomedical imaging and studies on the metabolites of new psychoactive substances. Xiongyu has published more than 60 peer-reviewed papers.

Peter Konradsson

Peter is a professor in organic chemistry and a principal investigator at the university of Linköping. He earned his PhD from Stockholm University and has during his career studied at several other laboratories such as Duke University (post-doc), senior scientist at Organon International (Akzo Nobel, The Netherlands) developing of synthetic heparin, Stockholm University as a research assistance (docent), studying synthetic carbohydrate chemistry. Peter’s main interest today is organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry and chemical biology. Peter has published more than 120 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Johan Dahlén

Johan has a background as a forensic and analytical chemist, and he is currently an associate professor of forensic chemistry at Linköping university. In 1999, he received his PhD degree at Linköping university and was thereafter employed by the Swedish National Forensic Centre (NFC; called Swedish National Laboratory of Forensic Science – SKL in those days) for fourteen years, where he e.g. was the Project Manager for several EU funded international projects within the area of drugs profiling. In 2013, he was employed at Linköping university where he conducts research within the area of forensic science, including new psychoactive substances. Johan has published more than 30 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Jakob Wallgren

Jakob graduated with a master’s degree in organic chemistry in 2015. His thesis concerned the metabolism of new psychoactive substances, specifically synthetic cannabinoids. The following year he received a scholarship to carry on his research. In 2017, Jakob began his PhD studies to build upon his previous research on the metabolism of new psychoactive substances. He received his PhD degree in organic chemistry in 2020 and is currently working at the Swedish National Forensic Centre (NFC) as a forensic scientist.

Tobias Rautio

In 2019, Tobias received a master’s degree in organic chemistry where his thesis was about metabolites of new psychoactive substances (NPS). In the year 2019-2020, he obtained a scholarship at Linköping University that enabled him to continue his work on where he continued working on NPS metabolites. During his studies, Tobias has been working part time with forensic drug analysis at the National Board of Forensic Medicine. Since of October 2020 he is a PhD student at Linköping University.

Project partners

Chiron AS

Linköping University

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