TIAFT Washington YSC 2004 Summary Report

This year the TIAFT Young Scientists met for a full evening (6-9 pm) during the 42ndTIAFT annual meeting in Washington D.C. As this meeting was during the combined SOFT/TIAFT/FBI Symposium, a record number of young scientists (about 60) attended the meeting which was held in the Capitol Ballroom of the JW Marriott Hotel. The programme consisted of two key presentations, buffet dinner and an open forum discussion.

The two key presentations were:

• Adam Cawley (AGAL, Sydney - Australia) - "Toxicology of doping control in sports"
  Adam gave a presentation on the toxicology of doping control in sports to the young scientists. He gave a general guide to the analysis of drugs in sport, some pharmacology, latest technologies/methods/research and the medico-legal consequences of sports testing work including the requirements for measurement uncertainty and traceability. While the sports doping control is an applied field of forensic toxicology, these topics are of importance to the broader forensic toxicology community.
  The flow on discussion concerning measurement uncertainty and how to approach an uncertainty budget for method validation and evaluation was one of the highlights of the evening. It was of interest that many young scientists are attempting to deal with this concept as part of the ISO 17025 standards for accreditation.
   
  
• Carolina Troncoso (Colombia)
  Carolina gave us an interesting presentation on the status of drugs - consumption and exportation from the beautiful country of Colombia. This was a fascinating account as it gave us an insight into some of the more common drugs in South America and how some of these drugs, particularly cocaine, are distributed to western markets for consumption.

This year's forum also enabled young scientists to meet other young scientists for the first time as well as make those attending their first meeting somewhat less daunting than would otherwise be the case. That is why we also believe as a committee it is important to hold the YSC Meeting at the beginning of each conference.

We look forward to Korea in 2005 and seeing new and not so old faces again in Seoul. All suggestions for topics and presentations should be forwarded to the committee via the secretary (jimg@vifm.org) for consideration. The committee will continue to award the best poster, best oral presentation and best paper published. Information on these matters will be distributed before the meeting in Korea and can be found on the website and please also look for our increased presence in the bulletin from now on. And if anyone has any queries please email any of the committee members.

Regards,

Thomas Kraemer
President TIAFT YSC
thomas.kraemer@uniklinik-saarland.de