Even after three months, you can still find biomarkers for nerve gases in dried bloodspots. And, as Amsterdam researchers show in Forensic Chemistry, you can detect a wider range of substances than previously thought.

Research on chemical weapons - which are on the OPCW’s list of banned substances - is only allowed in one place in the Netherlands, at TNO Defence, Safety and Security. This includes the Novichok nerve agents. ‘There has not been a lot of research done on this yet’, says Mirjam de Bruin-Hoegée, a PhD student at the University of Amsterdam and at TNO. Our aim with this research was to develop a method by which people in the field - military personnel or doctors - can make a measurement relatively easily, so that it becomes clear quickly whether nerve gases have been involved.