Stacey has always been curious with a desire to know “why”, which led her to study chemistry, majoring in forensic science. She has worked in the racing industry analysing samples from jockeys, racehorses and greyhounds and now works in toxicology testing to identify harmful illicit drugs and prevent these from circulating in the community.

What do you do and why does it matter?

The Foren­sic Tox­i­col­o­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry is part of NSW Health Pathology’s (NSWHP) Foren­sic & Ana­lyt­i­cal Sci­ence Ser­vice (FASS). We detect and mea­sure an exten­sive range of ther­a­peu­tic and illic­it sub­stances in post-mortem spec­i­mens. These results assist NSWHP’s Foren­sic Med­i­cine ser­vice in their inves­ti­ga­tions of unex­plained or unex­pect­ed deaths in NSW and their sup­port for bereaved fam­i­lies seek­ing answers and the Coroner’s role in deliv­er­ing justice.

In addi­tion, Foren­sic Tox­i­col­o­gy assist NSW Health’s clin­i­cal tox­i­col­o­gists, via the Pre­scrip­tion, Recre­ation­al and Illic­it Sub­stance Eval­u­a­tion (PRISE) pro­gram to rapid­ly iden­ti­fy sub­stances (pri­mar­i­ly recre­ation­al and/or illic­it sub­stances) asso­ci­at­ed with severe tox­i­c­i­ty. This work has a sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic health impact, where there needs to be time­ly pub­lic health response to keep the com­mu­ni­ty safe and take the harm­ful sub­stances off the street.

Tell us about your sci­en­tif­ic career path and what inspired you to work in biochemistry?

I enrolled in a chem­istry degree major­ing in foren­sic sci­ence, and this deci­sion was fuelled by my desire to always know ‘why’. After my first tox­i­col­o­gy sub­ject, I was hooked!

I was for­tu­nate to be able to com­plete my Hon­ours project at FASS, pre­vi­ous­ly known as the Divi­sion of Ana­lyt­i­cal Lab­o­ra­to­ries (DAL) in the Foren­sic Tox­i­col­o­gy Depart­ment almost 30 years ago. I moved through sev­er­al depart­ments at DAL, includ­ing the Drugs Lab and Clin­i­cal and Envi­ron­men­tal Tox­i­col­o­gy, before leav­ing to man­age a Clin­i­cal Tox­i­col­o­gy Depart­ment with­in a pri­vate pathol­o­gy lab­o­ra­to­ry focus­ing on work­place drug test­ing whilst com­plet­ing my MSc (Tox­i­col­o­gy).

From there, I tran­si­tioned to the rac­ing indus­try tak­ing on a senior role with Aus­tralian Rac­ing Foren­sic Lab­o­ra­to­ry where we analysed sam­ples from race­hors­es, grey­hounds and jock­eys for restrict­ed sub­stances and that’s where I com­plet­ed my PhD. In 2024 my career path came full cir­cle, and I accept­ed a senior role in the Foren­sic Tox­i­col­o­gy lab­o­ra­to­ry at FASS.

A proud moment or inter­est­ing case?

Foren­sic Tox­i­col­o­gy has worked with the Pre­scrip­tion, Recre­ation­al and Illic­it Sub­stance Eval­u­a­tion (PRISE) team for a num­ber of years. PRISE is our NSW Health-led pro­gram which pro­vides access to exten­sive tox­i­col­o­gy test­ing to NSW Health acute care ser­vices for cas­es of severe and unusu­al sub­stance-relat­ed tox­i­c­i­ty or clus­ters of over­dos­es, sup­port­ing a pub­lic health response.

In con­junc­tion with Liv­er­pool Hos­pi­tal, FASS – Foren­sic Tox­i­col­o­gy has recent­ly joined the Emerg­ing Drug Net­work of Aus­tralia (EDNA) research pro­gram. EDNA is a nation­al research pro­gram where patients pre­sent­ing to par­tic­i­pat­ing Emer­gency Depart­ments (EDs), with severe and/or unusu­al clin­i­cal fea­tures con­sis­tent with recre­ation­al drug tox­i­c­i­ty, and/or patients pre­sent­ing as part of a sus­pect­ed clus­ter of drug poi­son­ings, are iden­ti­fied for inclu­sion. Blood sam­ples are analysed for illic­it drugs and nov­el psy­choac­tive sub­stance (NPS).

Close col­lab­o­ra­tion between lead clin­i­cians and their local foren­sic lab­o­ra­to­ries in each state will enable rapid detec­tion and report­ing of harm­ful illic­it and emerg­ing drugs while they are still in cir­cu­la­tion and poten­tial­ly not yet seen in NSW. This col­lab­o­ra­tion in turn sup­ports localised ear­ly warn­ing sys­tems (EWS) respons­es by shar­ing clin­i­cal and tox­i­co­log­i­cal infor­ma­tion across key agen­cies to inform pub­lic health and harm reduc­tion policies.

What do you like to do to unwind out­side of work?

I enjoy spend­ing time out­doors, includ­ing trekking and scu­ba div­ing. Cur­rent­ly cycling fills a major part of my time away from FASS where I par­tic­i­pate in e‑racing and Gran Fon­do events.

I recent­ly rode from Syd­ney to Berry (176 km) as part of a Vari­ety Children’s Char­i­ty ride. When I’m not out­doors, I love read­ing a good mys­tery book!

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