Nontarget Screening (NTS) Workshop on Analytical Techniques and Implementation

The NTS Workshop on Analytical Techniques and Implementation will take place 29–30 November 2022 in Odense, Denmark.

Because of the complexity of environmental and biological samples, chemical fingerprinting methods such as nontarget screening (NTS) have become increasingly popular. However, there are still open challenges that considerably slow down the uptake of this technology by the industry and markets.

NTS methods generate large amounts of data and new types of knowledge that hardly fit into the current regulatory framework, which is based on targeted, fully quantitative analyses. Without regulations, industrial bodies have little incentive to develop and market NTS tools for screening and monitoring environmental contaminants, which also significantly constrains the transfer of knowledge and resources between academia and industry and the actual implementation of methods used in research.

The purpose of this workshop is to bring academia, industry, and regulatory bodies to the same venue to discuss the different challenging aspects, with a strong focus on implementation challenges at all levels—from how to include novel analytical platforms that show great promise to how NTS generated knowledge can be used in regulation. The workshop will close with a one-hour panel discussion on the priorities to accelerate NTS adoption.

The questions to be addressed include:

• What can existing products, commercial or otherwise, do today?
• How close are the suspect screening/NTS workflows for new and
  old platforms to being suitable for use outside academia/research projects?
• How can, or do, authorities use the results from suspect screening/NTS in practice (for example, in the prioritization of capillary electrochromatograph [CEC])?
• How are suspect screening/NTS results reported?
• How to set-up QA-schemes/specifications for suspect screening/NTS authorities can refer to in, for example, tenders?

The workshop is organized by the University of Copenhagen under the Vandalf Project funded by Innovation Fund Denmark, and in collaboration with the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, the NORMAN network, and the Danish Society of Analytical Chemistry.

Following the workshop, the NORMAN network hosts its NORMAN general assembly meeting 1–2 December 2022 (www.norman-network.net).

The workshop will take place at Tolderlundsvej 3, 5000 Odense C, Denmark.

You can also register for online participation here: https://eventsignup.ku.dk/ntsworkshop/signup

Please contact Jan H. Christensen (jch@plen.ku.dk) if you wish to hear about sponsor options.