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Testing for Blood-Borne Viruses: the reach for wider sampling
World Aids Day took place on 1st December, with world leaders, the most prominent being President Obama, pledging support for estimated 15 million HIV carriers across the globe. In the UK an estimated 90,000 people have HIV.
Is this the Extinction of ESR, the Dinosaur Laboratory test?
Many laboratories have historically clung onto the ESR (Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate) as a test that can confirm that patients are unwell. Even though the science behind ESR is seen as dubious by laboratory scientists and many clinicians including Consultant Haematologists, the question that remains unanswered is why we are still requesting it?
A Guide to Choosing a Particle Sizer
The choice of a particle size analyser has never been more difficult. There are several techniques from which to choose and variations within eachtechnique. Sales literature claims of specification and performance have become highly inflated, confusing the first-time buyer; the result has beento hinder and not help the decision making process. Many particle sizing instruments were originally designed to address specific problems.Although some have found additional uses, there is still some truth...
Advanced Gas Detection Technology Supports Arctic Greenhouse Gas Research
Enormous quantities of greenhouse gases (GHG) exist within Arctic ice and frozen soils, so with the threat of global warming, a clear understanding of the relationship between GHG in the atmosphere and in the ice/soil is vital because melting of permafrost could cause a dangerous climate tipping point. There can be few more challenging environments for monitoring gases, but PhD researcher Martin Brummell from the University of Saskatchewan has successfully employed a Gasmet DX4015 FTIR analyser...
Investigating Phosphate Starvation in Plants Using Bioluminescence
A reliable food source is essential for life. To meet the requirements of the world’s growing population, food production will likely need to double by 2050 [1]. Overcoming this challenge will require the optimisation of crop growth, for example by improving efficiency and driving down costs. This can be achieved in several ways. Firstly, many crops are affected by pests and disease, reducing the usable fraction of crop yield. Secondly, plants need a plentiful supply of various elements to gro...
The Revolution In Texture Testing
Texture analysis is an established technique originating from the 1950s when manufacturers in the food industry began to require a more objective assessment of their products. Textural (or rheological) properties of foods, such as hardness, chewiness, gumminess, tenderness, ripeness, elasticity, and adhesiveness, had been characterised by laboratories using humans to do the qualitative evaluation. Today these same properties are largely measured in a consistently quantifiable manner using a Text...
The End for High-Pressure Gas Cylinders?
High-pressure gas cylinders are a common sight in many laboratories: a default for supplying analytical instruments with their gas requirements, high-pressure gas cylinders are familiar and provide the gas that’s required, so it could be said that the old adage, ‘if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it’, could well apply. Despite this, increasing numbers of analytical instrument users are choosing to supply their GC FID, LC/MS and other types of instrument with gas via an analytical gas generator. Dr...
Fast Atom Bombardment (FAB) Technology Celebrates 30th Anniversary in Cardiff
Following the 2010 3-Day BMSS meeting in Cardiff, the same venue was chosen again to host the 2011 event. As a non-university venue there were misgivings about initially making such a move for the societies major event but overall, based on the largely positive feed back from delegates that attended in 2010, the move was judged a success and hence 250 delegates (50 less than in 2010 – a sign of the times rather than the meeting content surely?) made the journey to South Wales to update themselve...
High-Field Asymmetric Waveform Ion Mobility Separation and its Application to Small Molecule Analysis
High field asymmetric-waveform ion mobility spectrometry (FAIMS), also commonly referred to as differential mobility spectrometry (DMS), is an atmospheric pressure gas phase separation technique which exploits the difference between the mobility of an ion under high and low electric field conditions, as they pass between two electrodes. FAIMS can either be employed as a standalone mobility device or used as an orthogonal pre-separation technique hyphenated with chromatography and/or mass spectro...
Frequency domain (Wavelet) investigation of OCT images of skin
In this article we investigate the use of wavelet transform on the images produced by an optical coherence tomography (OCT) to obtain further information from the OCT images transformations in different levels of decomposition with two wavelet mother functions, in frequency domain. To transform the image from the spatial domain to the frequency domain, wavelet transformation of the image was used as it was found that the images obtained from the wavelet transform include more details than those...
The New Era In Powder Flow Testing
In 2003 the Working Party on the Mechanics of Particulate Solids for the European Federation of Chemical Engineers endorsed the idea that a simple and inexpensive instrument to test powders in gravity discharge from hoppers would be of significant benefit to the bulk solids industry. Problems relating to erratic flow behaviour and total stoppage were taking a toll on efficiency of processing operations and, at times, quality and consistency of finished product. Test methods practiced by the indu...
Rocky Mountain High - and Getting Higher by the Day
Report on the 59th ASMS Conference, Denver, Colarado, USA, June 5th - 9th Once again the mighty ASMS Conference flexes its muscles and heads into town, on this occasion Denver, Colorado, even allowing for the fact that it was only a few years ago when the city last hosted the event. For a change this year in the review we invited three, past and current, committee members from the British Mass Spec Society (BMSS), all of whom have visited the event several times before, to give their opinions o...
Automation of a Complex, Multi-Step Sample Preparation Using the Standalone Agilent 7696A WorkBench
In analytical chemistry, sample preparation can be as simple as adding a solvent or as complex as performing chemical reactions to improve the instrumental measurements that follow. While sample preparation is a critical component to any chemical measurement, chemists rarely look forward to performing this job, especially if it is complex, boring and involves handling unpleasant chemicals. As a result, manual sample preparation can be the source of many errors and poor precision. To help reduce...
Pipettes as Sources of Error
Liquid delivery is one of the most common processes in life science laboratories, from drug discovery and compound management laboratories to analytical chemistry and genomics/proteomics facilities. These laboratories use liquid delivery for processes including sample preparation, dilution, standards preparation and reagent addition. However, the means for delivering liquid samples have advanced drastically over time, from the traditional glass micropipette to today’s electronic, variable volume...
Overcoming the challenges of direct organic elemental analysis with ICP-MS
Analysing organic matrices for trace elements is a challenging proposition and frequently involves complex sample preparation steps. This is time consuming and potentially risks introducing contaminants or losing elements of interest. Sample digestion or wet ashing methods result in an aqueous matrix which can then be analysed by conventional ICP-OES or, where superior detection limits are required, by ICP-MS. However, the direct analysis of organic matrices by ICP techniques has historically pr...
Shining a Light on 3D Cell Culture
The development of techniques to grow cells in culture was a major breakthrough for the field of biology providing an instrumental tool in drug discovery, developmental biology, stem cell studies and cancer research. More recently, cell culture is being used to produce cells within a highly-controlled environment for therapeutic applications, to repair or replace damaged tissues within the body. Traditionally, cell culture techniques have relied on 2D growth models, in which cells are propaga...
Fast Multi-element Analysis of Heavy Metals in Soil and Sediment Samples
Many dangerous heavy metals accumulate in the soil and sediments of our rivers, lakes and oceans if released into the environment either directly discharged by industrial plants and municipal sewage treatment plants or come from polluted agricultural areas or as a result of historical contamination. Since all these heavy metals can go into the water, the earth and the air and thus into the food chain, a proper disposal, recycling and the regulation of the application of sewage to agricultural...
Coupling Quadrupole ICP-MS with a Dual Syringe Pump Sample Introduction System for Fast and Accurate Determination of Trace Metals in Organic Solvents
The presence of trace metals in volatile organic solvents, even at trace level concentrations, has been associated with poisoning of industrial catalysts and subsequent contamination of final products. As a consequence, it is necessary that volatile organic solvents are analysed for trace metals in an accurate and reliable manner. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) has been traditionally used to perform such analyses, however, the efficiency of the method is limited. This arti...
Report on 6th International meeting on MS and related techniques in advanced analytical science.
The "6th International MS Symposium" held in Manchester, UK 12-14th April was the latest in an occasional series of scientific meetings initiated (by Micromass) in 1998. Sponsorship of the meetings has now been taken over by Waters MS Technologies. The format is that of a legitimate scientific meeting, open to all, that typically attracts Ca 150+ delegates. The forward to the 1998 book of abstracts sums up the original vision, which remains true today - ‘a unique scientific forum focusing on hi...
HILIC After the Hype: A Separation Technology Here to Stay
Today Hydrophilic Interaction Liquid Chromatography (HILIC) is by far the fastest growing HPLC separation mode, currently being used by almost 20% of the HPLC instrument owners [1], although the relative number of applications still is considerably fewer. Does this mean HILIC is yet another technology-hype on the separation science scene, and that the interest will soon vanish? We believe not. This paper reviews the reasons behind the remarkable rise of HILIC and based on that, tries to predict...
MicroRNA Profiling of Individual Hematopoietic Stem Cells
Single cell studies are increasingly important to stem cell biology as rare cell subsets are found to play a critical role in the maintenance of processes such as hematopoiesis. MicroRNAs are regulated during hematopoiesis, and the ability to study the expression levels of these genes in single cells is crucial to understanding the role microRNAs may play in hematopoietic stem cell function. Purified hematopoietic stem cell populations are heterogeneous, making it challenging to study these rare...
Oriented Self-Assembling Protein Monolayers for Antibody Capture on Gold Surfaces
The immunoassay is a powerful tool in diagnostics; antibody technology provides exquisitely specific capture of biological markers for disease. In the last 15 years there has been a drive to transfer the benefits of the immunoassay onto the surfaces of advanced electronic biosensors. Traditional methods of antibody immobilisation such as adsorption and chemical coupling have some disadvantages that are magnified in the arena of ultrasensitive miniaturised electronic detection of antibody-antigen...
Quick and reliable determination of complete proteins in pharmaceutical products by way of a TOC/TNb Analyser
In the pharmaceutical industry, the protein contents in culture media (for example, in vaccines) often have to be determined within the context of quality controls of raw materials, intermediate and finished products. Today a broad range of methods is available for this purpose. The European Pharmacopeia (Ph.Eur. 2.5.33) alone describes seven different methods that are based on different reaction and detection principles. The largest group of such methods consists in protein tests according to L...
The 62nd annual Pittsburgh Conference & Expo show review
The 62nd annual Pittsburgh Conference & Expo took place at the Georgia World Congress Centre in Atlanta, from 13-18 March and as always International Labmate Ltd (ILM) was at the forefront collecting all the latest news from product launches and business acquisitions to the most deserving of award winners. Exhibitors also shared their views with Tamsyn Cox, ILM Features Editor and provided valuable feedback. All this, and more, can be found within this Pittcon Show Review… Analtech’s Ken Gran...
From Atoms to Biomolecules: Celebrating the technological innovations in mass spectrometry on the 30th anniversary of the development of Fast Atom Bombardment (FAB)
British Mass Spectrometry Society - Annual 3-day Meeting at Cardiff City Hall, 11th - 14th September 2011 After the tremendous success last year of their first conference out of an academic setting, the BMSS are returning to Cardiff City Hall in September 2011. The purpose of this conference is, in line with BMSS aims, to provide an educational forum to discuss issues and applications associated with the use of mass spectrometers.The conference is designed to include and encourage an open exc...
The Technical and Clinical Benefits from Measuring 25 OH Vitamin D by LC- MS/MS
A dramatic explosion of interest in the clinical effects of Vitamin D and its metabolites in the past 5-10 years has stimulated a massive increase in requests for the measurement of 25 Hydroxy Vitamin D (25 OH D) in Clinical Chemistry laboratories throughout the world. Vitamin D can play an important role not only in the classical and well described area of bone health, where the re-emergence of rickets in population subgroups within the UK is a worrying problem and the role of 25 OH D in preven...
Oligonucleotide Biopolymers – Future Challenges for Chromatography
Synthetic Oligonucleotides as Therapeutic Medicines Synthetic oligonucleotides are an exciting new class of biomolecules capable of treating many disorders, which are currently not amenable to existing drugs, including viral infections [1], respiratory disorders [2], cancers [3] and rare diseases [4]. Current interest has been largely fuelled by two key events: firstly, Fire and Mello’s Nobel-prize winning discovery of gene silencing by RNA interference (which helped to improve our understandin...
The potential for a rapid, field-deployable, automated biosensor detection system for pathogens
Hospital acquired infections (HAI), often referred to as ‘superbugs’, are never far from the news. MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) leads the way in press coverage but is just one of a growing group of bacteria that can cause diseases with increasingly limited therapeutic options. Organisms with resistant strains include vancomycin resistant Staphylococcus haemolyticus, Clostridium difficile (C. diff), and numerous enterococcal isolates with plasmid-mediated gentamicin resistan...
The Influence of Water Activity (aw) in Bakery Products
Water activity - a widely unknown or underestimated quality parameter offers many more benefits than just normal moisture content determination. It is the key parameter of gathering information about product shelf life, texture and taste or microbiological and chemical stability. Nowadays, where foodstuffs are shipped around the globe, a tough control of a product’s water activity helps to reach the shelf-life goals and provides support for safe and uncontaminated foods to the consumer. Especia...
The Identification of Illegal Anabolic Steroids in Customs Seizures by GCMS and High Resolution LCMS
There have been numerous reports in the news over the last few years of new drugs of abuse becoming available on the UK market. These have included mephedrone, benzylpiperazine and the so-called synthetic cannabinoids found in ‘Spice’ type herbal high products. These have all led to revisions of the misuse of drugs act in an attempt to control their distribution and use. A slightly older problem is the importation of anabolic steroids. In the year 2008/9 there were 802 seizures of anabolic stero...
Recent Developments in Type C Stationary Phases: Exploiting the Versatility of Silica Hydride Materials
TYPE C™ silica is a relatively new chromatographic material that has been finding ever-increasing use in the last few years. The properties exhibited by these stationary phases are often significantly different than the ordinary silica used for most commercial products. While all TYPE C phases can be utilised in the reversed-phase, organic normal phase and aqueous normal phase modes, there are some unique capabilities within each retention mode that have resulted in innovative method development...
The potential for a rapid, field-deployable, automated biosensor detection system for pathogens - Dr Rosalie Multari and Dr John Waite
Hospital acquired infections (HAI), often referred to as ‘superbugs’, are never far from the news. MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) leads the way in press coverage but is just one of a growing group of bacteria that can cause diseases with increasingly limited therapeutic options. Organisms with resistant strains include vancomycin resistant Staphylococcus haemolyticus, Clostridium difficile (C. diff), and numerous enterococcal isolates with plasmid-mediated gentamicin resistan...
Determination of DNA and RNA Melting Point on UV-VIS Photometer SPECORD® PLUS - Alexandra Kästner
Nucleic acids are biological molecules essential for life. Together with proteins nucleic acids make up the most important macro molecules where each is found in abundance in all living things. They allow organisms to transfer genetic information from one generation to the next. There are two types of nucleic acids: deoxyribonucleic acid, better known as DNA and ribonucleic acid, better known as RNA. Their names are derived from type of sugar, ribose, contained within the molecules. In living or...
Why Is Phosphopeptide Enrichment Important? - Ylva Laurin, Ann-Marie Nissfolk, Johan Öhman, Ulrika Meyer, Helena Hedlund and Marianne Alben
Studying Cancer Cell Signalling Using TiO₂ Mag Sepharose™ Magnetic Beads Phosphorylation is a common reversible post-translational modification involved in the regulation of many essential biological processes, for example cell signalling, which is of prime importance for the study of various disease states such as cancer. The phosphoproteins and phosphopeptides resulting from these processes are important to the understanding of tumour progression, however, there are various barriers to...
Basic Comparison of Low Temperature Cooling Methods - Robert W Repke
There are various cooling methods available today that can impact both equipment and product performance. This paper aims to give an overview of the pros and cons of some of the most commonly used methods, and offer the most effective use of each. Methods and Descriptions: Dry Ice is a solid form of carbon dioxide with a temperature of -78.5°C (-109.3°F) at atmospheric pressure. 1 pound of dry ice = 246 BTUs. It’s colourless, odourless, non-flammable and slightly acidic. If the environment in...
The Identification of Illegal Anabolic Steroids in Customs Seizures by GCMS and High Resolution LCMS - Simon Hudson
There have been numerous reports in the news over the last few years of new drugs of abuse becoming available on the UK market. These have included mephedrone, benzylpiperazine and the so-called synthetic cannabinoids found in ‘Spice’ type herbal high products. These have all led to revisions of the misuse of drugs act in an attempt to control their distribution and use. A slightly older problem is the importation of anabolic steroids. In the year 2008/9 there were 802 seizures of anabolic stero...
Recent Developments in Type C Stationary Phases: Exploiting the Versatility of Silica Hydride Materials - Joseph J. Pesek & Maria Matyska
TYPE C™ silica is a relatively new chromatographic material that has been finding ever-increasing use in the last few years. The properties exhibited by these stationary phases are often significantly different than the ordinary silica used for most commercial products. While all TYPE C phases can be utilised in the reversed-phase, organic normal phase and aqueous normal phase modes, there are some unique capabilities within each retention mode that have resulted in innovative method development...
Advances in Separation Science - The Chromatographic Spring Symposium & Annual General Meeting - Paul Ferguson
The Chromatographic Society’s Spring Symposium and Annual General Meeting will be held at the Novartis site in Horsham (West Sussex) on Wednesday 11th and Thursday 12th May 2011. The theme for the meeting is ‘Advances in Separation Science’ with a particular focus on pharmaceutical drug discovery. The Spring Symposium will be held over one-and-a-half days allowing for an extensive range of presentations from academics, industrial speakers and vendors, as well as significant exhibition and networ...
Don’t compromise on Accuracy & Precision – Quality Pipette Tips are Crucial to Optimal Performance of a Pipetting System - Amanda Cooper
The work performed in clinical, research and quality control laboratories can be majorly impacted by a single droplet or sample so small it can hardly be seen. Thus, it is critical to evaluate all of the components comprising the pipetting system, in order to maximise accuracy and reproducibility of volume delivery when using micropipettes. However, even with the highest quality, regularly calibrated pipettes the choice of pipette tip used is also crucial to accuracy and performance. The ISO...
High Throughput and Rapid Response Gas Chromatography Mr Phillip James & Dr Mark Landon
Have Large Cumbersome Air Blown Gas Chromatography Ovens Had Their Day? Since the late 50’s, conventional gas chromatographs (GC) have been designed in much the same way, with a heated circulating air oven for the column and block heater ovens for the injector and detector. Evolutionary development of the column oven has been influenced by the improvement in column technology from the original large diameter packed columns to todays small bore wall coated capillary columns with their impressive...
New Knife Mill Sets Standards - The GM 300 Produces Homogeneous Samples Within Seconds - Dr Andreas Theisen
Retsch’s knife mill GRINDOMIX GM 300 is ideal for the gentle size reduction and homogenisation of food and feed. It processes sample volumes of up to 4,500ml quickly and reproducibly. With its four sharp and robust blades and a powerful drive with temporary peaks of up to 3kW it is ideally suited to homogenise substances with a high water, oil or fat content as well as dry, soft, medium-hard and fibrous products. The so-called QuEChERS method (‘quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe’) h...
900 Seconds At XenoTech - Paula Pou
Leading contract research organisation gains hundreds of hours in research time thanks to new QA method Contract research organisations (CROs) have been growing at an impressive clip since the 1990s when the R&D efforts and needs of pharmaceutical companies started becoming increasingly more complex. Despite their ongoing focus on innovation, most pharmaceutical companies, regardless of size, have also had to bear the weight of increasing external cost pressures, contributing to the downsizing...
Nanotechnology Now: 17th Column - NanoKTN
If UK nanotechnology expertise is going to be securely embedded in the global market, we need to ensure that UK SMEs are including international business development and collaboration in their sales and marketing plans. Earlier this year, the Nanotechnology Knowledge Transfer Network (NanoKTN) and the Institute of Nanotechnology (IoN), with funding from the Technology Strategy Board, announced a partnership to encourage and support UK nanotechnology SMEs in international business development. T...
Vacuum Ultraviolet Spectroscopy - Rob Morris
A variety of materials have spectral signatures in the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) region of 10–200 nm. VUV spectroscopy is useful for biomedicine, semiconductor testing and other applications. Because the spectral response of standard silicon charge-coupled device (CCD) detectors drops off rapidly at wavelengths as long as 400 nm, and because oxygen and water absorb in the VUV spectral band, maintaining sufficient signal outside a vacuum is not possible. Nitrogen purging of the spectrometer helps...
Near-Infrared Spectroscopy - Rob Morris
Near-infrared spectroscopy is a common analytical technique for chemistry and process control, where typical applications include identification of species and determination of water and fat content. New detector and optical bench options make it possible to configure miniature fibre optic near-infrared spectrometer setups for high-resolution applications such as laser and optical fibre characterisation. Laser Analysis using NIR spectroscopy Characterisation of laser lines – examples include s...
MicroRNA Profiling of Individual Hematopoietic Stem Cells - Ken Livak, Véronique Lecault, Adam K. White and Oleh I. Petriv
Single cell studies are increasingly important to stem cell biology as rare cell subsets are found to play a critical role in the maintenance of processes such as hematopoiesis. MicroRNAs are regulated during hematopoiesis, and the ability to study the expression levels of these genes in single cells is crucial to understanding the role microRNAs may play in hematopoietic stem cell function. Purified hematopoietic stem cell populations are heterogeneous, making it challenging to study these rare...
Sensitive Femtogram Determination of Aflatoxins B1, B2, G1 and G2 in Food Matrices using Triple Quadrupole LC/MS - Yang Chen and Jack Cappozzo
A simple and inexpensive sample cleanup procedure based on a dispersive solid phase adsorption approach (C18) is effective in removing background matrix contaminants for reliable determination of aflatoxins in food at the femtogram level by triple quadrupole LC/MS. This application demonstrates fast analysis time (< 6 min) with good chromatographic resolution and separation for all four aflatoxins. Standard curves for each aflatoxin analyte show good linearity (> 0.998) across a wide concentrati...
Nanoscience using silicon drift detectors for chemical analysis - Dr. Meiken Falke
Peltier cooled silicon drift detectors (SDD) were originally developed for space research to avoid the need of liquid nitrogen for cooling X-ray detectors. Figure 1 shows one of the first SDDs on Mars rover Spirit. Energetic alpha particles and X-rays from a curium-244 source are used here to illuminate Martian material. The SDD placed in the middle of the spectrometer in the inset on the upper right detects the resulting fluorescence. Compared to the simple diode design the SDD-signal readout i...
Sample Management and Laboratory Testing - Ian Rippin
The National Laboratory Service (NLS) recently announced its largest set of commercial contracts to date after having been appointed by UK Water operators to assist in the preparation for the adoption of the latest EU water legislation. Ian Rippin, Commercial Director at the NLS, describes how the programme will work in the new regulatory landscape. The Chemical Investigations Programme The UK Water Chemical Investigations Programme (CIP) is a massive scale environmental testing programme faci...
British Mass Spectrometry Society – Should you be a part? - Dr Susan Crosland
The British Mass Spectrometry Society has been representing the UK mass spectrometry (MS) community for over 40 years, and has many oversees members too. Its aim has always been to promote the education of scientists in MS - from the early days when it was just starting as an accessible technique, to today when the range of applications in which it is used is expanding dramatically. The Mass Spectroscopy Group (MSG) was set up in the UK in 1965, and its first meeting was that year at University...