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With the forthcoming USP monograph <1058>, many laboratories are in the process of reexamining their high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) instrumentation qualification practices. This article demystifies the qualification procedures and proposes a well designed, easy and simple set of experiments upon which to establish internal standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the complete qualification of HPLC instruments. A key concept is the development of a consistent test system, comprised of premade test solutions, a prequalified HPLC column, standardized protocols, and validated software that can be prepared in-house or purchased commercially as a kit. This system can be applied to any HPLC system worldwide, to produce comparable test results under uniform conditions. The test system is designed to be rapid, with a comprehensive performance qualification being completed in about 2 h for isocratic, and 3 h for quaternary gradient systems.

Varian Acquires Precision Detectors

Like any other segment of the world economy, current events and the realities of the world around us go a long way toward shaping the direction of chromatographic research and development, and consequently, the financial trends that have a direct impact on the industry in which we all live and work. In this sense, the LCGC Application Notebook has become something of a market barometer over the years.

Fiberguide Industries, Inc. (Stirling, New Jersey) has been recognized by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, California), for their participation and contributions in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) program with the presentation of a plaque at the Fiberguide Idaho facility.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., the world leader in serving science, announced that they have been presented with two 2008 Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards for Market Leadership and Competitive Strategy Leadership in Informatics.

In the first reported study of skeletal muscles in hibernating creatures by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE), scientists from Korea have attempted to shed some light on the molecular processes behind atrophy prevention.

Scientists in China have devised a GC-ECD procedure that involves bromination of acrylamide to give a derivative that is more easily detected at low levels than acrylamide itself. Their research comes in response to the discovery of acrylamide in many types of cooked food in 2002. This discovery made news due to the link between acrylamide and cancer. From a scientific point of view, the acrylamide discovery ensured the creation of a new generation of research grants, many of which involve mass spectrometry, using GC?MS or LC?MS.

Separations Systems Inc. (Gulf Breeze, Florida), a gas chromatography manufacturer, has been given the President's E Award in recognition of exceptional success in exporting their products to other countries.

Dr. Barry L. Karger, the James L. Waters Chair in Analytical Chemistry, Director of the Barnett Institute of Chemical and Biological Analysis at Northeastern University, and internationally recognized expert on separation science, has been elected into the Hungarian Academy of Sciences as an honorary member. Dr. Karger has also been awarded the Csaba Horvath Medal of Innsbuck, Austria, for his contributions to the field of separation science and bioanalytical chemistry.

Advion Biosciences Inc. (Ithaca, New York), a developer of microfluidic sampling technology for mass spectrometry (MS) has bought almost all assets of its production supplier, Washburn Manufacturing Technologies Inc. (Trumansburg, New York) for an undisclosed amount.

Agilent Technologies has announced the presentation of the 2008 Manfred Donike Award for scientific excellence in sports doping testing to the German research scientist Ulrich Flenker, of the Institute of biochemistry, German Sport University, Cologne, Germany.

The purge-and-trap (P&T) technique for analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) was pioneered in the 1970s at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) research laboratory in Cincinnati. Many of the operational parameters developed during this time period are still included in USEPA methods. While these parameters still produce good analytical results, they do not take advantage of advances in instrumentation that enable analysis of emerging contaminants such as fuel oxygenates, and increased sample throughput.

Gas chromatography may be a mature technique, but the need for it in the world of industry has never been greater. With environmental and petroleum-related issues dominating the social and political landscape, expertise in the area of GC-MS is in demand more than ever, making this month?s Tech Forum particularly topical. This month E-Separations Solutions' Technology Forum looks at the topic of GC-MS and the trends and issues surrounding it. Joining us for this discussion are Daniel Pentek of PerkinElmer, Inc. and Hans-Joachim Huebschmann of Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc.

Labtronics has been pleased to announce that a leading food and beverage manufacturer has selected its Nexxis sample tracker to upgrade their existing in-house sample tests and result tracking system.

GE Healthcare recently announced its completion of the acquisition of Whatman, which is a global supplier of filtration technologies and products.

Merck KGaA (Darmstadt, Germany), a privately-held pharmaceutical and specialist chemicals company, has acquired the assets of chromatographic column developer SeQuant AB (Umea, Sweden). "[The aquisition] offers Merck superb opportunities for the future expansion of the chromatography business," said Klaus Bischoff, head of the Performance and Life Science Chemicals division at Merck.

Q: The current advent of sub-2-?m particles has made ultrahigh-pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC) available for routine laboratory use. What are the size limitations for particles? How small can they get before the advantages are lost? Would smaller particles require even greater pressures?"

The application of UHPLC-MS for the analysis of schedule 1 drugs of abuse in candied and chocolate matrices Chris Loran and Jason R. Stenzel A small molecule HPLC-chip for the high-sensitivity quantification of pharmaceuticals using triple quadrupole MS. Stephan Buckenmaier, Martin Vollmer, Lukas Trojer and Corinne Emotte Evaluation of extraction methods and bias correction by EPA method 6800 protocol for mercury species in tuna fish tissue using an ion chromatograph coupled to an ICP-MS L.H. Reyes, G.M. Mizanur Rahmun, T. Fahrenholz, L. Tucker and H.M. "Skip" Kingston. Meeting preview 25th Montreux symposium on LC-MS. News All the news for May 2008. Incognito Incognito asks whether continuing professional development should be mandatory for analytical chemists and if so, how could a recognized standard be implemented for assessing basic competencies? Market trends & analysis Glenn Cudiamat provides a report on laboratory gas generators.

Research Group: Dr Sc. Alexander Kurganov and Prof. Dr Sc. Victor Berezkin, Research Laboratory of Chromatography: Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow.

These mini Light Bulb Phone Charms are the perfect accessory for today's mobile phones. Simply put your phone on silent and save the world from hearing your ring tone. Instead, every time you receive a call or text, the mini Light Bulb will flash away.

International Symposium for High Performance TLC

In this article, the authors evaluate the use of multiple mass defect filters on metabolite identification data from a hybrid mass spectrometer. The study also investigates the use of higher energy collisional dissociation for structural elucidation in metabolite identification experiments.

Scientists Jorn Chi Chung Yu, Garrett Lee Burleson, and colleagues in the Department of Forensic Science at Sam Houston State University in Texas have developed a new method for identifying gunshot residue without the presence of lead.

Specific purity requirements are set for water sources, whether we deal with waste, ground, surface, or drinking water. Water quality is key, and it is becoming a focal point for an increasing number of communities worldwide. Water quality determines the use of a body of water such as for manufacturing, farming, fishing, and human consumption. The reason to strive to maintain or improve a given body of water is to preserve or upgrade its quality, because once this quality degrades, so does its value.

PerkinElmer (Waltham, Massachusetts) announced the "Ettre Award" to honor a young scientist in the field of gas chromatography.

With electron ionization (EI) used in most gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) applications, the molecular ion typically is broken apart into multiple fragment ions during the EI process.

Thar Instruments (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) has expanded their European team by four new members since the company's acquisition of Berger SFC in 2007.

In drug discovery, determining information about the extent of metabolism and the elucidation of metabolite structures is a vital step for lead optimization and drug scaffold refinement. The identification and characterization of metabolites plays an important role in both the drug discovery and development phases, as unsuitable pharmacokinetics (bioavailability and drug distribution), toxicity, and adverse drug reactions might be linked to metabolic instability. Historically, metabolite identification was carried out after a compound had been chosen for drug development. However, to reduce candidate failures attributed to toxicity effects, many pharmaceutical companies now conduct these experiments in the earliest phases of candidate drug selection.