Suzanne Perry

Suzanne C. Perry, the founder of Salient Analytical Services, is a 40+ year veteran of mass spectrometry and analytical chemistry technology, providing analyses and meaningful data to clients in university, medical, and corporate scientific laboratories. Ms. Perry completed her B.S. (Hons) and M.S. (Hons) degree using Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC/MS) in Biochemistry at Rutgers University, and has advanced technical knowledge and experience in Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/GC/MS), Liquid Chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MSMS), High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA-immunoassays) and related technologies. At Mycogen Corporation (now Dow AgroSciences), she was responsible for the development of immunoassays and has received two international patents for her work. This informed her of the critical gaps between hospital clinical screens and forensic analyses for the detection and quantitation of drugs and alcohol in blood versus serum.

She studied at the BCIT School of Nursing and obtained her Venipuncture Certificate in Phlebotomy in 2016. Ms. Perry routinely consults and testifies on matters of Approved Medical Practices (AMP) regarding forensic and hospital/clinical blood collection. This hands-on certification rounded out her ability to speak on “Draw to Data” issues in forensic toxicology analysis of alcohol and drugs, especially with regard to hospital clinical analyses versus forensic level analyses. She has lectured twice on the FDA 2019 recall of the grey cap blood alcohol tubes from Becton Dickenson and their impact on the reliability of the analytical results, as well as the current 2022 FDA Class 2 Recall of grey capped tubes for off-gassing isobutylene. From 2016 to 2018, Ms. Perry was a Contract Faculty Member at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in the area of Criminology, Criminal Justice, IT, and Environmental Protection Sciences.

Ms. Perry developed the largest nonprofit mass spectrometry core facility in western Canada under the direction of 1993 Nobel Prize-winning chemist Dr. Michael Smith at the University of British Columbia. There, she taught analytical chemistry and technology at both graduate and undergraduate levels. During her 23-year tenure, she provided thousands of chemical analyses for hundreds of university, non-profit, and corporate research clients globally in a host of biological samples: blood, urine, tissue, and cerebral spinal fluid. Her lab’s analyses are cited in over 60 peer-reviewed medical and scientific papers around the world. Ms. Perry was a chromatography column consultant and distributor for polyLC INC (USA) for over eight years as well as a technology transfer consultant to ISO-accredited labs, which deepened her expertise in guiding scientists in achieving analyte separation, characterization, and quantification.

She has been providing drug and alcohol analytical reviews and scientific opinions in both Canada and the US at the municipal, district, Superior and Supreme Court levels over 80 times. She has testified in over 120 APS hearings. She provides comprehensive reviews of the data in criminal, civil cases as well as on behalf of public defenders since 2014. She has testified in the states of WA, CA, MA, GA, ID, CO, FL, and IL as well as 3 Canadian Provinces. She has experience with data from analytical labs in 17 states and those of the Canadian National Forensic Laboratory Services – including forensic, hospital/clinical, DOJ and contractual corporate labs. Her work encompasses review of DUI (alcohol/drugs), seized drugs, workplace drug testing and sobriety compliance testing and screening, child custody cases, ante- and postmortem analyses, hospital analyses, and personal injury cases. She is competent in the review of not only blood but urine, and other postmortem specimens for analytes as well as solid drug analysis.

Ms Perry has been an invited lecturer and instructor for Continuing Legal Education (CLE for medico-legal topics combining science and the law to audiences including judges, prosecutors, law enforcement and attorneys over 23 times since 2016. As an invited speaker, she has been honored to present her CLE credited lectures at the MCDAA Baltimore, CDLA San Diego and Los Angeles (2023), and NACDL, and NCDD conferences in 2016, the Florida Bar Continuing Legal Education Committee – Criminal Law Section 2018 and 2021, Montana Association for Criminal Defense Lawyers, Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Assn. (TCDLA) 2022, Washington Foundation for Criminal Justice in Seattle every year between 2018-2021, DUIDLA San Diego 2019 and 2020 OACDL.

Ms. Perry provides her services to defense and prosecutors. She has been registered with the CPCS with the State of Massachusetts as both an Analytical Chemist and Phlebotomist since 2019. Ms. Perry is a dual citizen of the US and Canada who can work legally in both countries. She is based in Vancouver, BC, Canada, but also maintains a home in Southern California, so she may also be located there throughout the year. Ms. Perry works in the Pacific Time Zone and can best be reached at scperry@salientanalyticalservices.com or by cell phone worldwide at 1-778-881-9765.