What do you enjoy most about pharmaceutical sciences? 
"The equipment and techniques are stunning as is being able to use these to separate molecules. When I’m sitting behind this equipment, I see a molecule. Whether that’s paracetamol or drugs. For me, there’s no difference. That’s why you shouldn’t ask me what MDMA does to someone as I have no idea. Yet my work and personal life do converge sometimes. It has happened that I was busy the whole day at the lab with MDMA derivatives and then saw someone using this at a party in the evening." 

What does your research entail?
"I developed a method that can distinguish the synthetic drugs 3-MMC and 4-MMC from each other. This enables us to distinguish these ten times faster than using comparable techniques. There’s just a minor difference in the position of molecules between 3-MMC and 4-MMC. And yet, forensically there’s a huge difference: one is on the list of soft drugs, the other on the list of hard drugs and that can make a difference in sentencing." 

Isn’t this a cat-and-mouse game between drug developers and you? 
"Absolutely. The government recently placed 3-MMC on the Opium Law list and that same day dealers sent out an e-mail stating that they are now selling another derivative. The disadvantage is that we know very little about the effect and toxicity of this derivative. The government has inadvertently redirected the focus to anther substance that we know much less about and could be much more dangerous to use." 

So chemistry is vital to society. 
"Definitely! It’s also a very interesting tool for following trends in society. For example, which drugs are contained in sewage? That changes considerably around New Year and during exam weeks we detect more Ritalin. We also clearly saw reductions in cocaine and MDMA use during the pandemic. It’s so cool to see that; this really is applied chemistry."

Picture: David Meulenbeld