Queens award for TrichoTech

HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN has conferred her Award in 2008 to TrichoTech in recognition of its outstanding achievements in Innovation. The Cardiff based facility is one of Concateno's laboratory centres of excellence.

The Queen's Awards for Enterprise are the UK's most prestigious awards for business performance. This year 41 companies received the Award for Innovation. “Apart from raising the profile of our company, we are particularly delighted that our staff's commitment and contribution to this important work is recognised” said TrichoTech's General Manager, Rachel Woods when she heard of the Award. “Every test we carry out has enormous significance for the donor, and I am very proud of our team's dedication not only to broadening the scope of illicit drugs that we can detect but also at ensuring the highest standards of analysis are met.”

TrichoTech tests a lock of hair to provide a long-term window of detection that can profile drug misuse over months in comparison to the days or hours that other biological samples such as urine and saliva provide.

Each hair follicle has its own blood supply, so when drugs are ingested and enter the bloodstream traces of them end up in the hair core. Hair grows at about a centimetre a month, so testing a three centimetre hair sample profiles drug use over approximately three months.

In 2004 the Cardiff based laboratory uniquely gained accreditation for testing four different biological sample types for drug misuse - hair, saliva, urine and blood. Throughout the last four years they have extended their range of drug detection and improved their limits of detection.
Most recently, in March 2008, TrichoTech gained a double global first by gaining accreditation for two of its tests to the international standard known as ISO 17025:
Gammahydroxybutrate (GHB) - one of a number of drugs cited in drug-assisted assaults, often referred to as 'date rape', and EthylGlucuronide (EtG) - a metabolite created when alcohol is consumed.

“As many drug-assisted assaults are not reported until it is too late to conduct a test on a urine or blood sample, the ability to go back a few months testing a lock of hair could prove invaluable.” explained Woods. “With alcohol, current blood tests provide either a snapshot view of liver damage or a two week profile of alcohol use. An elevated EtG result in hair will indicate a potential alcohol concern over a longer period of about a month. Combining these alcohol tests help add to the picture that local authorities and children's guardians need to make critical decisions on children's safety.”