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Dana Hostetler Office: ES&T L2-108 Office Phone: 404-385-4427 E-mail: DanaHostetler@gatech.edu
Education 2008 - Present Georgia Institute of Technology, Ph.D. Student, Analytical Chemistry 2004 - 2007 Michigan State University, B.S. Chemistry
Honors and Awards 2008 Georgia Institute of Technology Presidential Scholarship 2004 Michigan State University Spartan Scholarship 2003 National Merit Honorable Mention
Research Interests
More than a million lives are lost to malaria each year. Around 90% of these deaths occur in Africa, usually in young children. Because of the dire need of antimalarials and the poverty of the region, successful drugs are at risk of being counterfeited or produced at lower cost with insufficient quality control resulting in substandard products.
The most successful malaria drugs recommended by the World Health Organization are Artemisinin Combination Therapies (ACTs). It is best known that there is widespread distribution of fake artesunate (an artemisinin derivative) tablets in Southeast Asia, resulting in fatalities in those who may have otherwise survived their infection. There is reason to believe this occurs in Africa as well. Another risk of fake antimalarials is the fact that substandard drugs, or those taken improperly increase the resistance of the malaria strain forcing science to develop stronger antimalarials. Counterfeit artemisinin derivatives and combination therapies have been discovered in six African countries where malaria is prevalent, but no large scale efforts have been made to assess the full scale of the situation.
Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART) is an ionization method that is conducted in open air under atmospheric conditions. This allows for mass spectrometric analysis of the surface of a sample without preparation. Using this new ionization method, I plan to analyze samples of drugs collected from various regions in Africa to ascertain whether the medications are genuine or counterfeit.
Publications
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