Funder: NRC Research Associateship Programs
Due Dates: February 1, 2025 (NIST February review) | May 1, 2025 (Current listed closedate) | August 1, 2025 (NIST August review)
Funding Amounts: Base stipend approximately $82,764/year with $3,000 travel allowance; typical appointment duration 2 years.
Summary: Supports postdoctoral research to develop and optimize methods for sampling and quantifying cannabis-related metabolites in breath, advancing cannabis breathalyzer technology and impairment detection.
Key Information: Open to U.S. citizens holding a recent doctoral degree; research conducted at NIST Boulder with access to advanced analytical chemistry facilities and collaboration opportunities.
Description
This fellowship opportunity at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Boulder focuses on advancing the science of cannabis breath analysis. The project aims to develop and optimize methods for capturing, removing, and quantitatively analyzing chemical components from exhaled breath aerosols associated with cannabis use, including major cannabinoids (THC, CBD), minor cannabinoids, and terpenes.
Current commercial breath collection devices cannot quantitatively analyze drugs, so this research will fill a critical gap by:
- Developing methods to extract and quantify breath metabolites from filter-like breath collection materials.
- Measuring thermophysical properties (e.g., vapor pressure, partitioning between air, blood, and fat) relevant to breathalyzer development and impairment assessment.
- Optimizing or designing materials for breath collection devices to improve capture and release of target compounds.
- Collaborating on a multi-agency project correlating cannabis consumption with intoxication and impairment, including validated impairment measures from University of Colorado Boulder collaborators.
- Developing mathematical algorithms with NIST statisticians to identify patterns and potential markers of cannabis impairment in breath metabolite data.
Researchers will have access to a full suite of analytical instrumentation, including gas and liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS, GC-QToF-MS/MS, LC-MS), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and other advanced tools.
This research contributes to understanding marijuana intoxication and supports law enforcement and public safety by improving cannabis breathalyzer technology.
