NACRW Working Groups

Working Groups Move Science Forward at NACRW

 All scientists are welcome to participate.

This year there will be three NACRW Working Groups meeting Sunday, July 21, 2019 in the Orchid Ballroom at the North American Chemical Residue Workshop (NACRW).  See Terms of Reference under "Resources" at the bottom of the page.

· 1:00 - 2:30 pm: Reference Materials Working Group

Develop processes and systems that will improve knowledge on the availability, use and stability of chemical residue reference materials and standard mixes. Identify needs and promote the development of chemical residue reference materials.

· 2:45 - 4:15 pm: Veterinary Drugs Working Group

Identify and recommend multi-residue veterinary drug methods that will meet the needs of government regulators. 

· 4:30 - 6:00 pm: PERFORM Working Group

Develop a process that demonstrates equivalent performance of a user method to the performance required of an Official method.

Residue chemists from all over the world gather at the North American Chemical Residue Workshop to share their work in trace level analyses of pesticides, antibiotics, emerging contaminants and other organic chemicals and metals in foods and environmental matrices. This is an excellent opportunity for scientists to discuss their projects and work together to meet common needs. There is a need for the scientific community to recognize worthy regulatory methods that are not being considered by other standards setting organizations. There is a need for residue chemists to share knowledge of standard mix stability. There is a need for multiple laboratories to work together on collaborative studies, which are too large for a single organization. Working groups are being established to utilize the combined expertise of our members for our mutual benefit. 

Possible projects include:

· Build and maintain an analytical standards database with solubility, stability, interactions with other compounds, etc. 

· Negotiate contract to purchase analytical standard mixes for less

· Develop method performance requirements for “regulatory” multi-residue and other methods.

· Develop consensus-based criteria for multi-laboratory method validations and expert approval of protocols. (analytes, matrices, instrumentation, etc.) 

· Develop procedures for primary and laboratory sampling for residue analyses

· Provide expert review of proposed collaborative methods

· Identify and support laboratories who participate in studies

· Provide expert review of validation studies

· Develop criteria for NACRW to recognize and endorse methods with demonstrated performance excellence.

· NACRW recognition of methods that have successfully passed multi-laboratory validations and meet agreed upon performance criteria.

All chemists are invited to participate on working groups. Interested scientists can attend the meetings or participate remotely by contacting working group leaders.