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The Column

Multidimensional liquid chromatography strategies are the most widely used method for increasing the number of spatially resolved components and reducing stress on mass spectrometric detection. However, the stress placed on a secondary dimension in a comprehensive on-line methodology is very high. An increasingly attractive approach is the coupling of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with ion mobility spectrometry hyphenated to mass spectrometry (IMS-MS). Tim Causon and Stephan Hann of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, Austria, spoke to The Column about their work evaluating this approach and exploring its possibilities for metabolomics.

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The Column

The Chromatography Society is holding a four-day educational event in the Lake District from 14–17 October at the Wordsworth Hotel in Grasmere. Aimed at post-graduate students and novice chromatographers, the event will focus on the fundamentals of liquid chromatography and its practical application in industry and academia.

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The Column

Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) may be a viable diagnostic tool for inflammatory arthritis according to research from the University of Amsterdam.

Dwight Stoll, an associate professor of chemistry at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota, was honored recently with two awards: the 2016 Gustavus Faculty Scholarly Achievement Award, presented at the college’s annual Honor’s Day Convocation in May, and the 2016 Palmer Award, presented at the Minnesota Chromatography Forum (MCF) Spring Symposium, also in May.

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LCGC Asia Pacific

Appropriate analytical methods are required to evaluate the presence, metabolism, degradation, and removal of specific compounds in complex mixtures. There is an increasing demand to analyze samples with a wide range of polarities in a variety of applications, including environmental analysis, biomarker discovery, and proteomics. Multiple analyses on complementary columns are often needed to cover the separation of all compounds with a large difference in polarity. This article describes a generic method involving an ultrahigh‑pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC) system equipped with two external switching valves to connect hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) and reversed-phase LC columns in series for the sequential analysis of polar and apolar compounds.

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LCGC Asia Pacific

Nontargeted metabolite profiling by ultrahigh-pressure liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (UHPLC–MS) is a powerful technique to investigate the influence of genetic and environmental factors on metabolic phenotypes in plants. The approach offers an unbiased and in-depth analysis that can reveal molecular markers of desirable phenotypic traits that can be complementary to genetic markers in plant breeding efforts. Here, the power of nontargeted metabolite profiling is illustrated in a study focused on the determination of molecular markers in malting barley that are predictive of desirable malting quality for brewing applications.

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The Column

Leon Blumberg has been at the cutting edge of chromatography since the late 1980s. The Column spoke with him about his contribution to the past, present, and future of chromatography.

Not every method is as we would hope it would be. Some methods come to us in imperfect form and we have to live with them, while others are difficult separations and, by necessity, need to be developed using close control of several variables such as eluent pH, eluotropic strength, ionic strength etc.

The Column

Waters Corporation has announced the addition of Richard Chang and Xiao Ran Yu to its Asia Pacific leadership team. Chang has been appointed as Vice President of Waters’ Asia Pacific Operations and Yu has been appointed as General Manager of Waters China.

Food and beverage manufacturers who perform simple sugar analysis require methods that provide sensitive, selective, and direct determination of carbohydrates. Minimizing errors associated with sample preparation is of key importance, because samples often require large dilutions that can impact the downstream accuracy of results. In this summary, the benefits of using high-performance anion-exchange chromatography coupled with pulsed amperometric detection (HPAE-PAD), which does not require sample derivatization, will be discussed. We will also cover recent technological advances, including high pressure ion chromatography, which have enabled manufacturers to analyze more samples in less time.

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The Column

While conventional calibration for gel permeation (GPC) or size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) is useful, there are inherent disadvantages in this type of analysis that introduce experimental error. This uncertainty may cast serious aspersions on the rigour and utility of the results. Multi-angle light scattering (MALS) detection is quite simple to add to an existing chromatography system and can help overcome the challenges faced with single detector chromatography and conventional calibration-based methods. An alternative separation technique called asymmetric flow field-flow fractionation (AF4) offers tunable, column-free fractionation.

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LCGC Europe

In the world of data integrity, the focus is typically on the data and the numbers. How can technology, such as a laboratory information management system (LIMS), help to ensure data integrity?

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LCGC Europe

The third instalment in this series provides an overview of modern practices of separation science in small-molecule drug development. It highlights approaches in high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method development and physical or chemical characterization to support process chemistry and formulation development, and for assessment or control of clinical trial materials. The roles of separation scientists in analytical development and salient chromatographic methodology trends are also discussed.