Dr. DeFrancesco wins award for research in chronic alcohol abuse marker

Dr. DeFrancesco received the Best Innovation Award at the 2026 PEth in Mind meeting from The Society of PEth research (PEth-NET).  Phosphatidylethanol (PEth) is a biomarker displaying high sensitivity and specificity as a screening biomarker for chronic alcohol use and abuse.  As such, there is significant need and potential for a method that can be used clinically to detect and quantitate PEth, and diagnose alcohol misuse by patients.  

Dr. DeFrancesco's research group has worked on the analysis of PEth using GC-EI-MS for several years, including a US Patent "Quantifying Phosphatidylethanol from Blood Samples" (patent no: 11,085,939).   The most recent work focuses on a novel derivatization method that shows increased specificity.  

Researchers in the DeFrancesco group who contributed to this project are: Mary McMillan (Class of 2014), Myesha Thomas (Class of 2019), Helen Dobbelmann (Class of 2024), Emma Katubig (Class of 2024), Samantha Morey (Class of 2024) and Alex Schepker (Class of 2027).  

 

Details from the meeting can be found here:  https://peth-net.org/