The Column-10-07-2011

The health benefits of barley grain as a source of dietary fibre are well known. In the case of barley, as with most cereals, the phenolic compounds are concentrated in the bran, which until recently was removed during the milling process. Now food researchers are investigating the possibility of producing barley flours naturally enriched in bioactive compounds and have shown that the separation of different fractions of whole barley by pearling have resulted in the outermost fractions yielding the highest phenolic content.

The optimum in proteomics research today is in validating the performance of promising biomarkers across large biological sample sets. Many new strategies have been developed in recent years to improve and accelerate targeted MS verification assays.

The global food, beverage and agricultural industry caters to the population of the entire world. Even though the food industry does not rely on analytical instrumentation to the same extent as perhaps other industries, the sheer size of the industry results in a considerable market for such instruments.

Agilent Technologies will collaborate with Dr Shane Snyder ? an internationally recognized authority on water contamination from the University of Arizona?s Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering ? and the university?s BIO5 Institute to develop new methods of detecting emerging contaminants in water, according to a company press release.

Liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization–mass spectrometry (LC–ESI–MS) is often used for the identification of proteins from complex peptide mixtures made from enzymatic digests of selected proteomes.

Acquired drug resistance (ADR) is a major problem when it comes to treating some forms of cancer and one that has been baffling cancer researchers for some time. Now a team at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, USA are pioneering research using liquid chromatography multiple reaction monitoring (LC-MRM) to track the proteins involved in ADR. Ultimately this could assist in clinical decision-making for developing individualized patient treatments for multiple myeloma and other types of cancer. The research results are published in the October issue of Molecular and Cellular Proteomics.

Purnendu ?Sandy? Dasgupta, a chemistry professor at the University of Arlington in Texas, USA, has been awarded a $1.2 million grant from NASA , according to a press release from the University?s website.