Originally published by Construction News.
New technology for the construction industry is not limited to innovations aimed at driving down costs and improving efficiency in the build process. In the case of Intelligent Fingerprinting, technology is being used to improve health and safety practices and compliance.
The brainchild of founder and chief scientific officer David Russell, Intelligent Fingerprinting conducts drug screening tests through a fingerprint. “When you look at a fingerprint, it’s actually made up of sweat and fatty materials,” says Intelligent Fingerprint business development director Paul Yates.
“That is just the same as any other bodily fluid, such as blood, urine or saliva, in as much as they will contain information that will tell you something about the person. You can look for something called metabolites, which are the by-products of the body’s metabolism from things that you have ingested or eaten.”
Prof Russell’s idea was to isolate the metabolites found in the sweat of a fingerprint and analyse them for traces of drugs.
How It Works
The first step in the process is obtaining the fingerprint of the person who will receive a drug test. This is done by having them press their finger on a collection Cartridge, which is then inserted into the Reader unit for testing and analysis.
Measuring about 20 x 15 x 10 cm, the Reader unit releases chemicals that target the metabolites of four drugs of abuse.
“The first four we’ve looked at are amphetamines, cannabis, cocaine and opiates, which include things like heroin,” Dr Yates explains.
The results are reported as either positive or negative.
“Intelligent Fingerprinting is as simple of walking up to somebody and saying, ‘Your name has come out of a hat for a random drugs test, place your finger on this Cartridge’, and that’s it,” Paul Yates, Intelligent Fingerprinting
With a cost of around £10 per test attached to the solution, which will go up or down depending on the number of tests being done, Dr Yates admits it’s not the cheapest drug-testing option. “It’s probably comparable to oral fluid testing, but urine testing is usually quite a lot cheaper,” he says. “That’s due to a combination of it being around the longest, and it’s become a very commodity-driven industry in as much as you can buy test cups very cheaply and sometimes their accuracy is not as good.”
Dr Yates says the benefits emerge when you consider the invasive, time-consuming process of collecting urine samples, which requires gender-specific sample collectors and having all the taps in the bathrooms sealed, while some companies require an observed sample.
“[Intelligent Fingerprinting is] as simple of walking up to somebody and saying, ‘Your name has come out of a hat for a random drugs test, place your finger on this Cartridge’, and that’s it. You’ve collected the sample,” Dr Yates says.
The drugs Intelligent Fingerprinting can test for are currently limited to the aforementioned four, and it cannot detect alcohol. However, the company is working towards catering to the specific needs of customers. “In rail, for example, they have a defined panel of drugs they screen for, so we’ll be adding those,” Dr Yates says.
The product was launched in the final quarter of 2017 and is being used by contractors in the construction industry, but Dr Yates is unable to disclose their identity.
If successful, the solution could help the industry take another step towards ensuring its workers are fit to be on site and handle heavy machinery.
