Professor David Cowan
Head, Department of Forensic Science & Drug Monitoring
Director, Drug Control Centre
Professor David Cowan co-founded the Drug Control Centre at King’s College London in 1978, and became its Director in 1990.
Professor Cowan coordinates the major laboratories of the Drug Control Centre. He has published extensively in the field of pharmaceutical analysis especially as it relates to detecting drug administration in sport. He has continued to develop analytical approaches and to apply advanced analytical techniques to investigate drug administration both licit and illicit. He is particularly interested in the use of mass spectrometry as the key technique.
For example, Professor Cowan’s laboratory has taken a lead role in developing methods of analysing so-called ‘date rape drugs’ that are typically undetectable in a victim's blood as soon as 24 hours after administration. The LC-MS-MS methods his lab has developed can now confirm the presence of previously unknown metabolites for many days after the event, enhancing law enforcement efforts to establish evidence of a crime.
The Drug Control Centre is regularly approached for advice and analytical services to the British Transport Authority, the Armed Services and the Home Office. Professor Cowan’s experience and his methodology were features of the successful London 2012 Olympics bid and the Drug Control Centre will play a major role in the drug monitoring programme for the event.
He was a Visiting Laboratory Director at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games, where the first NESP positive was discovered. He was also a member of the IOC Medical Commission for the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 and the Turin Winter Olympic Games in 2006.
The Drug Control Centre undertook the sample analysis during the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games and Professor Cowan was Co-Director of the laboratory for the Malaysian Games in 1998 and in 2006 directed the testing for the Olympic Council for Asia’s 15th Asian Games held in Qatar.
Professor Cowan has served on a number of national and international committees including the Council of Europe Working Party investigating Drug Abuse in Sport that led to the first World Anti-Doping Convention; the Laboratory Representative on the International Olympic Committee’s Medical Commission, and the World Anti-doping Agency’s Laboratory Accreditation sub-committee. He is a member of the Crippen Club for Distinguished Toxicologists.