Dr. Christopher D. Chouinard, Assistant Professor Dr. Chouinard was born and raised in the small town of Grafton, MA. His interests in chemistry and biology brought him south, where he attended University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Go Tar Heels!) and furthered his passion for analytical chemistry. After briefly working as a project manager…
Three Undergrads Honored at Chemistry Departmental Awards Ceremony On Friday, April 12th, the Clemson Chemistry Department hosted its annual Honors and Awards Event. The Chouinard Group was well represented, with three undergrad students taking home well-deserved awards! Undergraduate Awards in Analytical Chemistry: Copeland Johnson Chemistry Faculty Award: Walker Hodges Warwick Chemical Foundation Award in Chemistry: Breland Jones Congratulations…
Mass spectrometry has been the technique of choice in anti-doping labs since the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984. Since then, a combination of targeted tandem mass spectrometry and high-resolution techniques have been used to quantify and identify anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs, respectively. Recently, the promise of ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS) has been…
Walker Hodges Named College of Science “Outstanding Undergraduate in Discovery” Walker Hodges, a chemistry major in the Chouinard Research Group, has established himself as a leader in the reactions subgroup performing reactions on different isomeric compounds. One application of this research is to help provide analysis for organizations like the World Anti-Doping Agency to prevent…
Protomers, or prototropic isomers, are protonation site isomers than can be resolved using ion mobility spectrometry. Dating back to their first report by Karpas et al. in 1990, decades of literature have studied their fundamental properties. Recently, our group and others have identified the presence of protomers for many fentanyl analogues, owing to their multiple…
Where the resolving power of IM-MS techniques is insufficient to differentiate challenging isomers, various chemical approaches have been used to alter their mobility with the goal of better separations. We are primarily focused on simple, fast, and inexpensive reactions targeting common steroid functional groups. Thus far, we have published on reactions with ozone, simple carbonyls…
New psychoactive substances (NPS) are a broad class of illicit drugs that pose a significant public health threat. Our group is developing novel ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS) methods and technology for their detection. Representative Papers: Separation and Characterization of Synthetic Cannabinoid Metabolite Isomers Using SLIM High-Resolution Ion Mobility-Tandem Mass Spectrometry (HRIM-MS/MS) Improved separation of…
Shadrack Wilson Lucas successfully defended his Masters thesis, titled “Using ion mobility mass spectrometry in conjunction with derivatization methods to enhance the separation of different steroid isomers” on Friday, April 5. Congratulations, Shadrack!
Separation and Characterization of Synthetic Cannabinoid Metabolite Isomers Using SLIM High-Resolution Ion Mobility-Tandem Mass Spectrometry (HRIM-MS/MS) Ralph Aderorho, Shadrack Wilson Lucas, and Christopher D. Chouinard* J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrom. 2024, 35, 3, 582–589 Publication Date: February 15, 2024 https://doi.org/10.1021/jasms.3c00419 Synthetic cannabinoids, a subclass of new psychoactive substances (NPS), are laboratory-made substances that are chemically similar to…
Determining protonation site in fentanyl protomers using ion mobility-aligned MS/MS fragmentation Ralph Aderorho and Christopher D. Chouinard Int. J. Mass Spectrom. 2024, 496, 117185 Publication Date: December 14, 2023 Drug overdoses in the United States totalled over 100,000 in 2022, with an estimated 68 % of those being attributed to illicitly manufactured fentanyls (IMFs). Their ease and low…
