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The Norwegian Institute of Public Health conducted a study into the drug use habits of nightclubbers and arrested criminals in Oslo, Norway. The study used UHPLC–MS–MS to analyze the drug-use profiles of nightclubbers and criminals arrested while under the influence of drugs to develop an understanding of drug use patterns in these groups.

Sciex has announced it is teaming up with the Children’s Medical Research Institute to help equip The Australian Cancer Research Foundation International Centre for the Proteome of Cancer facility with tools to advance its large‑scale proteomic profiling studies.

Research into honeybee venom is being performed to identify active proteins acting as allergens and toxins. Researchers combined LC–MALDI-TOF/TOF-MS–MS, LC–ESI-QTOF-MS–MS, and a combinatorial peptide ligand library enrichment method to detect 269 proteins.

The first meeting of The Chromatographic Society’s Diamond Jubilee celebration year will be held at the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) in Savoy Place, London, UK, on Tuesday 22 March 2016.

Click the title above to open The Column February 22, 2016 Europe & Asia issue, Volume 12, Number 3, in an interactive PDF format.

Click the title above to open The Column February 22 2016 North American issue, Volume 12, Number 3, in an interactive PDF format.

At a ceremony at the University of Copenhagen, Waters Corporation (Milford, Massachusetts) officially welcomed the University’s Forensic Chemistry Laboratory within the Department of Forensic Medicine into the Waters Centers of Innovation Program.

VUV Analytics (Cedar Park, Texas) is collaborating with Caltech Environmental Analysis Center (EAC) in Pasadena, California, in a closed-ended project that explores new application capabilities using VUV’s VGA-100 Vacuum Ultraviolet (VUV) detector.

A team of researchers from China and the USA has developed a liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS–MS) method for quantifying methylergonovine (ME), a semi-synthetic ergot alkaloid used for the treatment and prevention of postpartum haemorrhage (PPH), in human plasma.

Xiaoli Wang has been selected as the winner of the first 2016 Young Investigator Award from the Chinese American Chromatography Association (CACA).

Gel permeation/size-exclusion chromatography (GPC/SEC) is the standard method for separating samples by molecular size and determining molar mass distributions. However, GPC/SEC instruments can also be used to investigate porous materials and to learn more about pore size distributions, as a powerful alternative to nitrogen gas (N2) adsorption or mercury (Hg) intrusion porosimetry.

Contaminants in surface water and drinking water supplies arising from pharmaceutical and personal care product use as well as other compound sources pose a difficult challenge for analytical chemists. Thomas Letzel from the Technical University of Munich in Germany, spoke to The Column to discuss collaborative research taking place in Europe to address contaminants of emerging concern in water analysis.

Researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Aberdeen have identified disease markers for Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT), commonly known as “sleeping sickness”. Using reversed-phase ultrahigh‑performance liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (UHPLC–MS) and proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) spectroscopy researchers found 53 discriminatory metabolite markers.

Sciex (Framingham, Massachusetts, USA) has announced a co‑marketing agreement with Pressure BioSciences, Inc. (South Easton, MA, USA), which aims to address the challenges arising in complex sample preparation.

Crawford Scientific (Strathaven, UK) has announced that it will become YMC Europe’s (Dinslaken, Germany) sole authorized distributor within the UK.

A glimpse of what’s on offer for chromatographers at Pittcon 2016, which will be held from 6–10 March 2016 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

The key variables and instrument setup requirements needed to achieve success in gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS).

Click the title above to open The Column February 08, 2016 Europe & Asia issue, Volume 12, Number 2, in an interactive PDF format.

Click the title above to open The Column February 08, 2016 North American issue, Volume 12, Number 2, in an interactive PDF format.

A team of researchers based in France has examined the consequences of microwave and electron-beam treatments on food and its packaging using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and gas chromatography (GC)

Click the title above to open the LCGC North America February 2016 Application Notebook Issue, Vol 34 No s2, in an interactive PDF format.

Click the title above to open the LCGC North America February 2016 Chromatography and Sample Preparation Terminology Guide, Vol 34 No s2, in an interactive PDF format.

The winner’s of LCGC’s 9th annual awards are highlighted

Recently several states have legalized recreational and medical marijuana. This has created a confusing set of circumstances due to legalization at the state level, but cannabis is still an illegal schedule 1 drug at the federal level. This confusion also affects the development of analytical methods because there are no clear guidelines available to laboratories. This whitepaper will discuss the following topics: • Overview of state analytical requirements • Discussion of analytical method development for cannabinoids and related compounds of interest • Discussion of method performance

UV technologies are being increasingly used in water purification systems, taking advantage of the germicidal properties of UV and also its effect in reducing organic contaminants. This paper discusses the effectiveness of using UV technologies along a water purification chain and the parameters and configurations to be considered when selecting UV lamps for water purification systems.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are carbon containing compounds that evaporate easily at normal temperatures. They are typically generated from petroleum products, plastics, paints and solvents,. Other sources are the disinfecting agents used to control microbial contaminants in drinking water. Disinfecting agents react with naturally occurring organic matter in the source water to produce VOCs known as trihalomethanes. When VOCs are spilled or improperly disposed of a portion will evaporate, but some will soak into the ground and eventually end up in drinking water supplies

Ion chromatography (IC) has been recognized as one of the most competitive techniques for trace analysis, based on results from continuing research and development work into different types of instrumentation. Ultratrace analysis requires the use of extremely clean reagents, including water. The ionic content of water was monitored by IC along a water purification chain, from tap water to ultrapure water. This study shows that ultrapure water from a Milli-Q system is suitable for trace analysis by IC.

Semivolatile calibrations on this column dimension often range from 1.0 to over 100 ng/µL; however, a 0.25 mm ID column usually experiences peak overload as the mass on column approaches 10 ng. As shown in Figure 1, isobars that elute close together-such as benzo[b]fluoranthene and benzo[k]fluoranthene-quickly become unquantifiable as mass on column increases. Under split conditions, the resolution requirement (50% valley) is met for all nine calibration standards, and the peak apices shift less than 0.04 min, indicating only minor peak overload. Conversely, under splitless conditions, the three highest concentration calibration standards fail the resolution criterion. The peak fronting and resulting overlap from column overload make it impossible to generate a linear calibration including these points. Additionally, the peak apex of benzo[b]fluoranthene shifts more than 0.2 min, which could result in an erroneous compound identification.