The trace element unit at King’s is one of 4 SAS designated sections within the Department, and one of only 7 SAS-TE units within the UK. The unit provides a specialist advice, assay and interpretation service (with short turn around times) for a wide-repertoire of elements in various matrices (e.g. environmental, biological) using both conventional (electrothermally heated graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrophotometry) and state-of-the-art technology (inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy): The latter instrumentation is very sensitive (detection at sub ppb levels) and allows multi-element analysis within individual samples. The reliability of the data produced is monitored by implementing an appropriate programme of commercial/in-house quality control samples. The performance of the unit is regularly assessed by participation in various external quality assessment schemes including: NEQAS (blood lead and cadmium), TEQAS (range of analytes in blood, serum and urine), SAS (blood lead and serum aluminium, copper and zinc) and EQUIP (USA based- for urine iodine). The unit is also an HSE approved laboratory for the occupational monitoring of lead and cadmium. The Department has full CPA accreditation and has a major interest in metal metabolism, and in particular iron and copper metabolism. Consequently, we have close links with the Institute of Liver Studies, and have ongoing collaborative studies on metal metabolism in patients with underlying genetic disorders (e.g. Haemochromatosis, Wilson's Disease).

Drs Kishor Raja and Adrian Bomford are members of the King's College Iron Metabolism- Interdisciplinary Research Group (http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/imirg/index.html) and participate in research and development programmes (both internal/external).

Deputy Director: Dr Kishor Raja

Tel:+44 (0)20 3299 4127
Fax:+44 (0)20 3737 3140