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They say it takes several years for an awards program to really get off the ground and start amassing a history, establishing a place for itself in the industry. If this is true, then I believe we can safely say that this year, the LCGC Pittcon Awards have officially arrived.

The autumn leg of PerkinElmer?s 2009 European ?For the Better? Tour will soon get underway. At this series of seminars, scientists, industry leaders and the company?s specialists will share their applications expertise and demonstrate how the company?s solutions can be used in sectors as diverse as environmental analysis, food safety, polymers and chemicals.

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Development and production of biopharmaceuticals is a growing segment of the pharmaceutical industry. The development of vaccines is only one - but as a result of the current H1N1 flu hysteria it is the most striking - segment of this emerging field. Recombinant proteins, ranging from insulin products to therapeutic antibodies, represent another important group of biopharmaceuticals. With the introduction of the first so-called biosimilars in Europe the demand for highly efficient analysis methods is further increasing. Newly developed stationary phases for the typical modes of biochromatography of native proteins such as SEC or IEC open up new opportunities for increasing throughput in the bioanalytical lab.

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The analysis of the molar mass distribution of polyethylene and polypropylene resins by GPC/SEC has always been considered a demanding task because of the requirement of high temperature operation for dissolution and complex hardware design, which often results in high maintenance cost, in particular related to the autosampler/injector and detector units, and in other problematic and consuming tasks such as solvent handling added to column fragility, sample degradation or detector sensitivity–stability.

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Over-expression of recombinant proteins is commonly used for the production of protein reagents in industry and academia. Problems often occur relating to the stress put on the cells to deal with this huge increase in synthesis. Cellular proteins that are part of the protein synthesis machinery are often up-regulated under such conditions. Large quantities of the recombinant protein can be bound to these cellular proteins, making purification difficult.

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A critical part of research and quality control analysis of proteins involves verifying the primary and secondary structure of a protein. Peptide mapping is the main technique used to determine the structure of a protein as well as identify any post-translational modifications.

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In this application, we demonstrate the use of supported liquid extraction (SLE) for the extraction of beta blockers and NSAIDS from plasma compared with traditional liquid–liquid extraction. SLE was demonstrated to yield consistent LOQs using lower sample volumes.

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The flexibility to use short sub-2 micron columns on UHPLC instruments at high flow-rates permits fast analysis with high resolution of complex samples. An Agilent ZORBAX Rapid Resolution High Definition (RRHD) Eclipse Plus C18 1.8 µm column separated seven different biocides in less than 1 minute with high resolution. A flow-rate of 1.7 mL/min was used on 2.1 × 50 mm column to achieve the rapid separation. The Agilent 1290 Infinity LC system was used as the column pressure just exceeded 1000 bar at this high flow-rate. A sample of hand sanitizer was found to contain 2-phenoxyethanol and methylparaben using the method.