All News

Top 13 Articles of 2013

Everyone loves a list. At least, the LCGC editorial team does! LCGC?s biggest stories of the year show just how varied the world of chromatography is. From Excel modeling to evaluating a calibration curve, from trends in sample preparation to poor resolution and sample recovery in UHPLC ? these popular pieces stand for their technical know-how, unique insight, and perspective.

Gilles Martin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Eurofins Scientific Group (Luxembourg, Luxembourg), has been elected to the Bruker Board of Directors (Massachusetts, USA). Martin founded the original Eurofins Scientific Nantes food authenticity laboratory in 1988, and is a past President of the French Association of private analytical laboratories, and the North American Technical Committee for Juice and Juice Products.

Superficially porous particles for HPLC columns ? often called ?core?shell? particles ? have gotten a lot of attention in recent years because of their excellent performance. Yet so far, columns made with fully porous particles are still the most widely used. Will superficially porous particles eventually take over?

Researcher Christina Agapakis from the University of California, Los Angeles, USA, has come up with an unusual way of making cheese by taking bacteria from various parts of the human body and analyzing the odour of each cheese produced using headspace gas chromatography?mass spectrometry (GC?MS).

Scientists in the USA have carried out an investigation into the variety of beverages enjoyed by the Northern Bronze and Iron Age peoples before written records began using a combination of analytical chemical techniques.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, has made a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) structure index database publicly available on-line (http://pah.nist.gov/). A byproduct of hydrocarbon fuel combustion, PAHs can have significant adverse health and environmental impacts. The website contains data on more than 650 PAH compounds, with more to be added in the future.

Agilent Technologies (California, USA) has awarded a grant to the Duke Molecular Physiology Institute, Duke University (North Carolina, USA) to support the research of the metabolic and physiological aspects of major chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease. The institute researchers perform a range of analytical chemistry techniques, including liquid chromatography and gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry, to characterize molecular pathways in disease.

In this new video interview, Dwight Stoll of Gustavus Adolphus provides advice about key decisions in method development, common errors to avoid, and other advice for getting started with 2D LC.

Peaks of Interest

The Australian Patent Office has granted a patent related to W. R. Grace & Company's (Columbia, Maryland) Reveleris flash chromatography system.

Thermo Fisher Scientific (California, USA) has signed an agreement with GE Healthcare (St Giles, UK) to sell business assets for $1.06 billion. Thermo Fisher committed to sell its cell culture, gene modulation, and magnetic beads businesses in 2013 to expedite approval of its pending acquisition of Life Technologies by the European Commission.

A new proteogenomics method using high-resolution isoelectric focusing together with liquid chromatography?mass spectrometry (HiRIEF LC–MS) developed by researchers from Karolinska Institute and Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab) in Sweden has been published in the journal Nature Methods.1

Taking Quality Time Out

Management culture is stifling automation of analytical methods. Is it time to review the paradigms of your analysis and implement change?

A study published in the Journal of Proteome Research has uncovered some of the proteins responsible for the characteristic aroma and taste of the black P?rigord truffle (Tuber melanosporum Vittad.), using a combined approach of bioinformatics and proteomic analysis.1

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Researchers at the University of Toronto (Toronto, Canada), funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, have discovered a potential long-lived greenhouse gas, perfluorotributylamine (PFTBA), that could be a contributing factor towards global climate change.1 Published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the study performed gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and spectroscopic techniques to suggest that PFTBA can have a bigger impact on climate than carbon dioxide.

The Australian Patent Office has granted a patent related to W. R. Grace & Company?s (Columbia, Maryland) Reveleris flash chromatography system. The patent concerns the use of evaporative light scattering detection (ELSD) with flash chromatography.

Chris Reddy, a marine geochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (Massachusetts, USA), has been selected to receive the 2014 Clair C. Patterson Award from the Geochemical Society. The award recognizes one scientist a year who has made an innovative breakthrough in environmental geochemistry in service to society.

A look at what's in store for chromatographers at Pittcon 2014, which will be held at McCormick Place South, Chicago, USA, from 2–6 March 2014.

Entirely new sample preparation technologies continue to be introduced, mainly in the academic sector. Some of these technologies will undoubtedly stay in the academic laboratory. However, some new technologies may "cross the chasm" and eventually become a standard laboratory procedure. This instalment will examine some of those methods.