On Thursday 30 April 2026 at 14:00, Ida Marie Marquart Løber defends her PhD dissertation entitled “LC-MS-Based Metabolomics and Mcahine Learning for Time Estimation and Analytical Optimisation in Forensic Investigations of Death, Crime, and Toxicology”. 

Determining when a crime happened is one of the hardest challenges in forensic science. A new PhD study shows that chemical traces in the body can help investigators estimate time since death much more precisely. The research uses a technique called metabolomics, which measures molecular changes over time after death. By combining these chemical patterns with machine learning, the study was able to estimate the time of death within a few hours in controlled experiments. Overall the study desmonstrates that time can be measured in forensic cases through chemistry and chemical changes, offering important steps towards new tools to support more accurate time estimations in criminal investigations.

The summary is written by the PhD student.

The defence is public and takes place in C115-125, Aarhus University Hospital. Please see the press release for more information. 

Contact

PhD student Ida Marie Marquart Løber
Mail: imml@forens.au.dk 
Phone: +45 50828828

Read full press release