Projects

The rapid emergence of new illegal drugs (HHC, nitazenes, synthetic cathinones, etc.) creates a need for fast, on-site drug testing tools that can detect multiple substances in biofluids. These tools are crucial for clinicians, anti-doping experts, and law enforcement. Multiplexed portable analytical tools have a great potential to be implemented for this purposes. Moreover, such kind of instruments could be utilized in personal healthcare monitoring by enabling early-stage diagnostics of health problems. This project aims to develop electrophoresis-based analytical tools for reliable, fast and cost-effective metabolism studies in vitro, revealing the characteristics and metabolic pathways of new psychoactive substances. Additionally, new on-site biofluid testing tools (focused on oral fluid) will be developed for detecting new drugs. The results of this project will enhance drug monitoring, support public health, and improve safety.

The goal of the project is to develop and integrate a personal student assistant based on large language models (e.g. GPT) into the learning environment of Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech). The assistant will be connected to the university's Moodle learning environment and will be able to provide fast and personalized feedback, helping students with course completion and solving assignments.

This study aims to explore the chemical composition and variability of Estonian bee pollen across different seasons and potentially different regions. The focus is on analyzing the content of various bioactive compounds, such as antioxidants, amino acids, and volatile compounds, to evaluate the nutritional value and potential of pollen as a functional food.

The ENACT (https://enact-eu.net/) strengthens crime prevention and counter-terrorism efforts by supporting cutting-edge technologies like the Drug Hunter Analyzer. Developed by TalTech and the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board, Drug Hunter enables fast and reliable on-site drug detection in oral fluid within minutes. ENACT funding aims to enhance the visibility of Drug Hunter by supporting pilot studies, validation, and dissemination efforts, ensuring its successful adoption in law enforcement and forensic applications.

Ukraine has a quarter of the world’s chernozems and 41.5 million hectares of agricultural land, covering 70 percent of the country. Agriculture pollutes about 60 percent of land resources and approximately 45-48 percent of reservoirs, representing 18-24 % of global GHG emissions. SmartAGRO's goal is to develop a precision fertilization solution that will help Ukraine achieve its climate policy goals. SmartAGRO is based on capillary electrophoresis technology, which enables the determination of various macro- and microelements in the soil. The goal is to develop a precise agriculture platform with recommendations for soil fertilization for agricultural crops growing in Ukraine, taking into account the chemical profile of the soil, the type and the crops grown, helping to reduce the use of fertilizers, increase/maintain yields and reduce GHG emissions.

Drug Hunter is a portable analyzer for the detection of narcotics in saliva. The project's goal was to integrate machine learning methods into an expert system for substance detection to reduce the competence required of the analyzer's user to interpret the results and thereby reduce errors in substance detection. Various machine learning methods based on supervised learning - artificial neural networks - were tested during the project. In order to prepare (annotate) the data necessary for training the neural network, a cloud service was created, where the technical parameters of all analyzes and the obtained electropherograms, on which the substances to be analyzed were marked, were stored. The best results in detecting electrophoretic patterns were obtained using a convolutional neural network (CNN). The analyzer was tested in cooperation with Estonian Police at roadside drug testing raids in Estonia.

The aim of the current project was to develop, test, troubleshoot, and validate the portable drug analyzer (previously called AiD) Drug Hunter (www.drughunter.eu) suitable for roadside drug testing in oral fluid by non-chemists operators such as police officers. Drug Hunter combines two powerful techniques in one box: capillary electrophoresis (CE) and deep UV fluorescence detection. Drug Hunter Analyzer solves multiple technological gaps of immunoassay tests (high error rates, control strip failure, only qualitative results, detection of illegal drug classes), providing immediate quantitative results for each drug even in multidrug abuse cases. The main project outcome was the thorough troubleshooting, testing, validation, and functionalities improvements of the Drug Hunter analyzer for the real operation conditions in cooperation with Estonian police. The main achievement was the development of a new oral fluid collection and treatment procedure that helped to resolve the issue, i.e. the lack of oral fluid due to the dry mouth effect. Another achievement is dedicated to the increased sensitivity of amphetamines and the overall analysis speed-up. The cut-off limits of Drug Hunter met the DRUID recommended cut-off limits. Based on the results of the validation, the methodology complies with the requirements of the European Medicine Agency (EMA) for bioanalytical method validation. Drug Hunter is a pre-commercial scale detection apparatus for illegal drugs to a quality level and simple enough to be used in the field handled by various professionals (police, custom workers, prison guards, and various transport situations). Drug Analyzer analyzer is protected by patent.