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David O'Reilly PhD
Group Scientific Director
"I believe that tobacco harm reduction has the potential to be one of the biggest public health opportunities of this generation. Although the proportion of adults who smoke is likely to decline, population growth means that in 10-years time there will likely be as many or more smokers globally as there are today. We are working towards producing a range of lower-risk products for the millions of adults globally who will continue to consume tobacco and nicotine products. However, we recognise that the science is complex and that external opinion on tobacco harm reduction continues to be divided. This is why we have made a long-term commitment to build the science base needed to determine whether new products will pose reduced health risks and to seek the support and guidance of the scientific, public health and regulatory communities in this."

The results of our study, reducing smokers' exposure to cigarette smoke toxicants, has been covered in a recent Finanial Times article.

A two day symposium focussing on today's challenges to separation science posed by complex matrices, chromatographic and mass spectrometric analysis in vegetable matter, smoke aerosols, particulates and products of combustion will be explored by specialists drawn from a variety of industries.

Our scientists have used a multi-analyte approach to determine the level of exposure to tobacco constituents of snus users. The results show that, generally, less than a third of each constituent measured was extracted by consumers during use.
