My interesting research field is the technologies of illicit drug control and new drug quality control, including drug trace analysis technology in vitro and vivo; rapid non target screening and identification of novel illicit drug technologies; and sewage epidemiology monitoring of illicit drug abuse. Besides, new methods for drug quality standards and quality evaluation are developed.

1. Research Projects

(1)10/2022-09/2025  PI: 45%( sub-project), active grants, Research on Targeted and Non Targeted Laboratory Detection Technology for Synthetic Cannabinoid Drugs 

The National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFC3300902)

(2)01/2019-12/2022  PI: 100%, completed grants,“Novel methods on rapid early warning screening and structural identification of new psychoactive substances in complex matrix”. The Natural Science Foundation of China (81872833)

(3)07/2018-06/2021  PI: 21% ( sub-project), completed grants, “Research of technologies for drug use estimation based on environmental sample analysis”, The National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFC0807402)

(4)01/2015-12/2017  PI: 100%, completed grants,“Study on chiral separation mechanism of new nature cyclopeptide bonded core-shell silica spheres chiral stationary phases for separation of pharmaceutical enantiomers”.The Natural Science Foundation of China(81402900)

(5)07/2013-06/2016  PI: 100%, completed grants, “Construction of a high-throughput drug candidates screening model based on the immobilization of aromatase on novel hybrid mesoporous silica sphere”. The Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province(BK20130654)

2. Representative Research Achievements

(1)Novel methods on rapid early warning screening and structural identification of new psychoactive substances

We presented the novel analysis strategy on the structure identification of NPSs in complex matrix. In combination of models and software programming, the novel methods combining chromatography-mass spectrometry and NMR are developed to discover the intrinsic correlation between exact mass, mass spectrometric fragment, retention time and fragment ion abundance of the same constituent from mixture spectra. The suspected structure of parent nucleus can be screened by virtual fragmentation methods in a rather short time. Then, guided by the deconvolved signals of parent nucleus, NMR-DOSY can be used for simultaneous unambiguous structure identification of unknown NPSs in complex mixtures. The analytical routes are utilized for the rapid identification and structural confirmation actual samples involved in the drug related cases, which shows the ability to identify NPS types with high accuracy and efficiency.

(2)Others

Based on the above study, we further develop standard-free ¹H qNMR methods for the analysis of fluoroketamine hydrochloride and cathinone derivatives, establish mass spectrometric methods for the determination of different types of new psychoactive substances in hair samples, develop a domestic miniaturised mass spectrometric method for rapid screening of fentanyl analogues in hair samples, study the mass spectral characteristics of piperazines, and determine the trace amounts of cathinones, synthetic cannabinoids and their in-vitro metabolites in sewage.

1. Yuqing Yang, Dongping Liu, Zhendong Hua, Peng Xu, Youmei Wang, Bin Di, Jun Liao*, Mengxiang Su*. Machine Learning-Assisted Rapid Screening of Four Types of New Psychoactive Substances in Drug Seizures. Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling. 2023,63(3):815-825. (IF=6.162)

2. Peipei Liu, Wenjuan Liu, Hongwei Qiao, Shan Jiang, Youmei Wang, Jie Chen*, Mengxiang Su*, Bin Di, Simultaneous quantification of 106 drugs or their metabolites in nail samples by UPLC-MS/MS with high-throughput sample preparation: Application to 294 real cases, Analytica Chimica Acta,2022,1226:340170. (IF=6.911)

3. Liping Dong, Wenjuan Liu, Xiaoyuan Zhao, Feng Yu*, Yungen Xu*, Mengxiang Su*. Preclinical Drug Pharmacokinetic, Tissue Distribution and Excretion Profiles of the Novel Limonin Derivate HY-071085 as an Anti-inflammatory and Analgesic Candidate in Rats and Beagle Dogs. Pharmaceuticals. 2022. 15(7): 801. (IF=5.215)

4. Shuo Yang, Yan Shi, Zhuonan Chen, Mobing Chen, Xinze Liu, Wei Liu*, Mengxiang Su*, Bin Di. Detection of mescaline in human hair samples by UPLC-MS/MS: application to 19 authentic forensic cases. Journal of Chromatography B. 2022,1195:123202. (IF=3.318)

5. Qingqing Xiao, Xiaotong Li, Chang Liu, Yi Yang, Yuqi Hou, Ying Wang, Mengxiang Su*, Wei He*. Liposome-based anchoring and core-encapsulation f-or combinatorial cancer therapy. Chinese Chemical Letters,2022,4191-4196. (IF=8.455)

6. Shan Jiang, Yuling Zhong, Hongwei Qiao, Bin Di, Jie Chen*, Mengxiang Su*. UPLC-MS/MS method for the simultaneous quantification of caffeine and illicit psychoactive drugs in hair using a single-step high-speed grinding extraction – Insights into a cut-off value for caffeine abuse, Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis, 2022,209,114489. (IF=3.571)

7. Lancheng Wang, Huimin Zhou, Kun Yan, Peng Xu, Bin Di, Chi Hu?, Mengxiang Su*. Using dual exonucleases to finely distinguish structural adjustment of aptamers for small-molecule detection. RSC Advances, 2021, 11, 32898 – 32903. (IF=4.036)

8. Zuoling Zhang, Min Xia, Pengfei Huang, Bin Di, Mengxiang Su*. Preparation and evaluation of a bacitracin-bonded silica stationary phase for hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography. Microchemical Journal,2021;170:106661. (IF=5.304)

9.Yuxin Zhao, Bo Wu, Zhendong Hua, Peng Xu, Hui Xu, Wenbin Shen, Bin Di, Youmei Wang*, Mengxiang Su*. Quantification of Mexedrone and its Analogues Using 1H‐quantitative NMR without Reference Standard. Analytical Sciences. 2021,37(11):1577-1582. (IF=1.967)