Story by Stacey Eidson, Augusta University
Fentanyl has become one of the leading causes of death in the United States.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently found that, of the estimated 107,543 drug overdose deaths in this country during 2023, approximately 74,702 were a result of fentanyl. But Guido Verbeck, chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in the College of Science and Mathematics at Augusta University, is making strides to battle the impact of this powerful drug on the nation by using a drone to detect dangerous chemicals in the air.
Verbeck has developed technology that would make detecting fentanyl much easier and safer for law enforcement officers, who could literally overdose just through skin contact with the powerful drug at crime scenes and border crossings.
For more than a decade, Verbeck has been developing several inventions including portable mass spectrometry and chemical sensors which can be used outside the lab to detect harmful chemicals.
As the director for the Laboratory of Imaging Mass Spectrometry at Augusta University, Verbeck recently attached a mass spectrometer to an enormous drone that could potentially one day be flown over neighborhoods by law enforcement to detect illicit drugs in the air.
Fentanyl is a potent synthetic opioid, and much like heroin and other opioids, it can be highly addictive. One gram of fentanyl is estimated to be at least 50 times as powerful as pure heroin, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
“Fentanyl addiction is one of the worst. It’s more addictive than heroin,” Verbeck said. “I never thought those words would come out of my mouth that anything was more addictive than heroin, but it is. Fentanyl has to be stopped. It has to be stopped now.”
The science behind using a mass spectrometer would allow law enforcement to basically make drug detection devices portable or “fieldable,” Verbeck said.
“Right now, if you want to know what the drug is or what’s in the air, you have to grab a sample outside and bring it into the lab and then analyze it,” he said. “The idea here is, could we reverse that? Could we make this instrument fieldable so that you don’t need to bring it in the lab? It’s safer, especially when talking about drugs. If the DEA has an authorized seizure, they’ve got to take everything. But we’ve made the mass spec fieldable by taking the instrument and making it rugged, smaller and easy to use.”
If these chemicals are being released and detected in a public space, it becomes a public health hazard, Verbeck explained.
Verbeck’s mass spectrometer attached to a drone can be used to detect everything from explosive manufacturing to chemical weapon deployment to secret drug labs, he said.
“If you’re making chemistry and you’re doing something that is poisoning a public area, then that’s an environmental violation,” Verbeck said. “One of the beautiful things with this drone is you can stay in a public space. We built this device specifically for the protection of the public space and detecting where the chemical effluent stream is coming from.”
Through his research, Verbeck has received approximately $5 million in external funding, 90 peer-reviewed publications, 15 awarded patents, and 12 applications.
Verbeck’s research into mass spectrometers and chemical instruments led him to develop the first FDA-approved breathalyzer for disease detection. In addition, Verbeck received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation last year to create devices for detecting other diseases, such as malaria and tuberculosis, that can be installed outdoors in any environment. He was also named to the 2023 Class of Fellows for the National Academy of Inventors.
“Augusta University gives me access to be able to do those types of medical- and health-related applications, but at the same time continue to fight the war on fentanyl,” Verbeck said. “We want to help those fighting fentanyl on the front lines, stopping it before it even gets across the border by flying these drones and finding the supply lines. We have to be proactive in order to win this fight.”
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