Alanna De Korompay, Toxicologist
Toxicology is the study of the effects, treatments and detection of poisons and the Edinburgh laboratory concentrate on four main areas - routine/suspicious deaths; deliberate poisonings/druggings; drug facilitated sexual assault and drink/drug driving.
Alanna knew she wanted a career in toxicology from the moment she worked as an intern at the Chief Medical Examiner's Office in Canada viewing autopsies and saw the interaction between the pathologist and the toxicologist.
"I find it extremely satisfying determining the cause of death or at least providing an indication, as it can give the family some sort of closure," said Alanna.
"In regards to drink/drug driving, it is a significant problem in Scotland and i'd like to think that the work we do at the lab provides a substantial contribution to keeping the roads safe.
"One of the most difficult cases I have worked on was aspects of the Vicky Hamilton case. It was such a high profile case and was constantly on the radio and television while we were carrying out our analysis. As the incident has taken place so many years ago it was not possible to get all the samples for analysis that we would generally focus on and so other biological samples had to be used which made the extraction and interpretation much more difficult for the section.
"I thorougly enjoy the area of toxicology and my job however, it would not be the same without the other members of my section."