Supporting our own in scholarship and research

Supporting our own in scholarship and research

Lipscomb funds 2026 summer research to advance humanitarian engineering and to test and validate a new method of testing drug levels in blood plasma.

From Staff Reports | 05/29/2026

Each year, Lipscomb University awards grants to allow faculty to focus on research and scholarship during the summer. In 2026, two professors will be working on developing new ways to impact our world for the better.

Dr. Kirsten Dodson
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Building a Network of Humanitarian Engineering Scholars, Practitioners and Students

Inspired and equipped through her work with Lipscomb's Peugeot Center for Engineering Services in Developing Communities, Dodson will take the first steps to create a network of humanitarian engineering scholars, practitioners and students, with the intention to create a space for humanitarian engineering experts to collaborate, network, learn and grow their efforts responsibly, sustainability and effectively.

Currently, there is not a location, society or group that formally supports and encourages engineering educators to incorporate humanitarian efforts into their own programs. Though many groups perform this type of work either in a professional or educational setting, there is lack of access to a network or space where these groups can join forces and build a better practice of humanitarian engineering, said Dodson.

"The intention of this network is to change the perception of the field of engineering
to one that is well-known as a leading profession in positively impacting the world," she said. "Together, these groups will cross boundaries between industry and academia,
between research and practice, between learning and doing, between people and
projects, to create meaningful change in their world."

Over the summer, Dodson plans to gather, summarize and analyze information around humanitarian engineering efforts, recruit and organize core participants and leadership, and develop plans for a summit that brings together participants to discuss next steps.

The results of the faculty summer grant will be the founding network of humanitarian
engineering scholars and practitioners as well as the plans for a humanitarian engineering summit to be held in October 2026. The summit will likely be held immediately following the IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference in Boulder, Colorado, for which Dodson serves as the technical program chair.

Dr. Matt Vergne
Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry
Development of Protein Exclusion Direct Aqueous Injection for LC-MS/MS

When forensic toxicologists or clinical labs need to know exactly how much of a drug is in someone's blood plasma, they turn to a technique called LC-MS/MS-liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry.

Blood plasma, however, is packed with proteins that will clog and destroy the delicate analytical column at the heart of the instrument if injected directly, so scientists have to perform a prep step called protein precipitation, which is slow, hands-on and uses environmentally unfriendly solvents and costly lab supplies.

Vergne proposes to skip the protein precipitation step entirely by developing and rigorously validating to FDA standards an LC-MS/MS method using a specialized HPLC column called the Imtakt Cadenza HS-C18. Unlike conventional analytical columns, this one is engineered to handle raw biological samples directly, thus handling protein removal and drug separation in a single step, automatically, while the instrument is running.

The Cadenza HS-C18 column isn't brand new. The manufacturer has marketed it for direct injection of blood samples for a while, but independent, fully validated applications of this column to forensic and clinical drug panels remain surprisingly rare in the published literature.

Verge will directly compare the direct-injection method to the conventional protein-precipitation workflow and assess method ruggedness and reliability. He will develop and validate this approach for two categories of real-world significance:

• Drugs of abuse, including ketamine, oxycodone, fentanyl and cocaine-compounds central to the ongoing overdose crisis and to forensic casework; and
• Exogenous ketones, including beta-hydroxybutyrate and raspberry ketone-compounds increasingly common in dietary supplements but poorly characterized in human pharmacokinetic studies.

If the approach delivers on its promise, the payoff is significant: dramatically faster turnaround in clinical and forensic labs, less solvent waste, fewer hands-on steps for technicians and a method that easily scales for high-volume applications such as overdose surveillance or pharmacokinetic studies of supplements.