There’s a New Way to Test for Synthetic Opioids. A DES Faculty Member Developed It.

When a new drug appears on the scene, information is critical.

Public health authorities need to know what drugs are being used and when, as they work to identify emerging threats, prevent overdose deaths and provide treatments.

Bikram Subedi, an Assistant Professor in Environmental Sciences is helping authorities get the information they need on a new class of substances, nitazenes, also known as synthetic opioids. He has developed a novel method for tracking them through wastewater testing.

“This marks the first time nitazenes have been comprehensively monitored and detected in the US,” Subedi said.

He has already put the tests to work in Louisiana. He and his team of researchers tested for nitazenes during the Superbowl and Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and discovered seven of the nine types of synthetic opioids in the samples, strong evidence the drugs were very present during the festivities. He has sent the data to public health authorities, including the Louisiana Department of Health.

Wastewater testing has several advantages. It’s comprehensive, non-invasive, and most importantly, nearly real time. Subedi’s method returns results within 24 hours, a turnaround time that helps connect spikes in drug use to specific events.

A More Potent Drug

Nitazenes are orders of magnitude more potent than conventional opioids like oxycodone and heroin. They were originally developed in the 1950s as an alternative to morphine but were not allowed on the market because of their associated risk with overdose deaths. 

Depending on the formulation, some nitazenes can be up to 800 times stronger than morphine and 40 times stronger than fentanyl.

They have been present on the illegal drug market in the US since about 2019, and are frequently mixed with other drugs, Subedi said. “The people who use drug, they don't always know what they're taking… [T]his could be with meth, this could be with cocaine, this could be with fentanyl.” This compounds the problems already created by drug abuse.  

Subedi’s lab is currently collecting samples from wastewater treatment plants at major urban centers across Louisiana to examine trends in use of illicit drugs.