Who they are
IRM is the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Zurich. Two areas matter for Drive Awake: traffic medicine, which assesses fitness to drive, and forensic pharmacology and toxicology, where the research on markers of sleep loss begins. Our contact is Prof. Thomas Krämer's group.
What they study
They look for objective biological markers of sleep loss. The question is both simple and hard: can sleep loss be read in a body fluid, the way alcohol already is? Their recent study tries to answer it using saliva, with mass spectrometry and machine learning.
From research to the road
The trace in saliva
A first measurable trace
In the study, a night without sleep leaves a recognisable metabolic fingerprint in saliva. Four nights cut to six hours leave only weak changes. It is a laboratory proof of concept, in 20 men, not a roadside test: the link with sleepiness at the wheel is still to be shown. The direction, though, is Drive Awake's: what can be measured can be prevented.
The people
- Prof. Thomas Krämer - head of forensic pharmacology and toxicology
- Michael Scholz - first author of the study, our contact
How they connect to us
IRM brings the objective measure and the forensic lens. Drive Awake uses that lens to prevent, not to prosecute: forensic science as a tool for prevention, not blame. Same direction: to understand before judging.
Credits and links
IRM - Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Zurich - irm.uzh.ch
Study: Scholz et al., Journal of Proteome Research, 2026 - DOI 10.1021/acs.jproteome.5c01064
On this platform
Your kit
Prepared for IRM Zürich: Drive Awake material for your channels, with a video player to embed, files to download and ready-made post texts.The episodes of «The 24 Hours» and the Monte Verità interviews are open to everyone. The partner password only opens a few extra sections of the kit: it is shared, not a personal login.
Open the kit →