People who have and have applied for a driver’s license know how much of a bummer the whole process is, especially when it comes to the part when you have to pee in a cup, usually in view of the lab tech. Well, that might be a thing of the past if Paul Yates and his crew from Intelligent Fingerprinting gets their way. They have developed a way for police to be able to detect drugs using your fingerprints. It’s able to do this via the application of gold nanoparticles coated with antibodies that stick to antigens on specific metabolites (waste particles) that get secreted through your pores. Fluorescent dyes attached to the antibodies will highlight the presence of any metabolites, which will give feedback if a user has been using a drug. While the technology is being aimed at law enforcement to help identify perpetrators using drugs, it’s not hard to see the potential use of this particular tech in places and procedures where drug testing is critical.
Source: New Scientist