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Thermo, Chata, and Cerno take top awards - Bruker Biosciences to acquire Bruker Optics - Chinese pharmaceutical company selects Thermo - DataApex and Knauer annouce cooperation.

Heidi Grecsek, PerkinElmer Life and Analytical Sciences

Higher productivity and faster analyses are two of the driving forces for continued improvement in high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) column technology. Reduction in the average particle size of HPLC porous column packings below 2 ?m has resulted in sub-1.0 min separations in the gradient and isocratic modes. In this instalment of "Column Watch", Ron Majors traces the development of particle technology from the beginning of HPLC to the present, discusses why small particles are desirable, and probes some of the difficulties to be encountered, including extracolumn band broadening, pressure restrictions, and instrumental considerations. Finally, he shows a wide variety of fast- and ultrafast applications examples from commercial products in the sub-2 ?m range. Speculation on future directions in HPLC in particle technology concludes the column.

Conjugation catalysed by the UDP-glucuronosyltransferase (UGT) superfamily of drug-metabolizing enzymes is an important mechanism of anticancer drug resistance in colon cancer cells. The mechanism manifests itself by a reduction in the intracellular concentrations of the parent drug through increased export of the glucuronide metabolites to the extracellular compartment. Modulation by an inhibitor of UGT inhibits the formation of metabolites and restores intracellular concentrations of the drug. This article describes a screening method using HT29 human colon cancer cells and based on HPLC methodology that allows the identification of effective modulators of the glucuronidation mechanism of drug resistance. A rapid solid-phase sample preparation technique using C2-bonded 40 ?m silica particles was developed for the extraction of cell lysates and culture media without degradation of unstable parent compounds and their glucuronides or artefactual in situ formation of metabolites.

New ways of envisioning scientific data are constantly being developed in data rich research environments. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine's Center of GRAVITY (Graphics, Visualization and Imaging Technology), USA have developed a new display for this data rich market. They have developed the Highly Interactive Parallelized Display Wall or HIPerWall. It is a massively tiled, grid-based display built using fifty 30-inch Apple cinema displays and twenty-five Power Mac G5 computers. This powerful display system allows researchers to view and manipulate their data sets at extremely high resolutions and collaborate with other scientists in new and exciting ways.

Thermal conductivity detectors have been in use since before the beginning of gas chromatography. Essential for fixed-gas detection - no substitute has the same ease of use and stability - thermal conductivity detectors are also employed when the auxiliary or combustion gases required by flame ionization or other detectors are unsafe or impractical. Although they cannot match the sensitivity of ionization detectors, thermal conductivity detectors are the third most used detector, surpassed only by flame ionization and bench-top mass-spectrometry detectors. This month's instalment of "GC Connections" takes a look at the operating principles and inner workings of the thermal conductivity detectors.

Infotrieve has announced that the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Acacia Research's CombiMatrix Molecular Diagnostics (CMD) group have each adopted the company's electronic laboratory notebook (ELN). This software solution is said to be the first enterprise-wide ELN to receive the full endorsement of the collaborative electronic notebook systems association (CENSA).

In this article, the selectivity changes that can be obtained with alkyl chain, polar endcapped, cyano, and perfluorinated chemistries when using generic mobile phases are illustrated for basic, acidic and neutral analytes.

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Upcoming conferences and events in the chromatography industry.

A new nanospray LC-MS microfluidic chip has been developed that avoids the operational problems that have hindered the broad application of conventional nanocolumn systems. The chip incorporates all of the traditional nanospray LC components on an inert substrate smaller than a credit card.

News All the news from May 2006 Opinion Zosimus reports on the benefits of on-line publishing but also questions why paper is still the dominant form of research publications. Market Trends & Analysis Glenn Cudiamat looks at how rising temperatures are being used to control separation conditions in HPLC and how HPLC media supports cope with this. Meeting focus An overview of the 30th International Symposium on High Performance Liquid Phase Separations and related techniques. Furan in food Colin Crews, Sarah Hasnip and Laurence Castle. USP analysis of tetracylines using reversed-phase polymeric HPLC columns Linda L. Lloyd and Keeley J. Mapp Chips for chromatography Dirk C. Hinz

W. R. Grace & Co. (Columbia, Maryland) recently announced that it will open a technical services laboratory in Shanghai, China, for its Grace Davison Discovery Sciences product group.

Millipore Corporation (Billerica, Massachusetts) recently announced that it has increased its investment in personnel and facilities to support the growth of its business in emerging international markets such as China and India.

Waters Corporation (Milford, Massachusetts) and Bruker BioSciences Corporation (Billerica, Massachusetts) recently entered into a collaboration agreement to provide greater integration and connectivity between Waters? ACQUITY Ultra Performance LC (UPLC) system and Bruker?s mass spectrometry (MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) products.

ACD/Labs (Toronto, Canada) announced that it has entered into a reseller's agreement with Applied Biosystems Group (Foster City, California) and MDS SCIEX (Toronto, Ontario).

Water and Bruker annouce collaboration Millipore increases investments in international markets Grace opens center in Shanghai ACD/Labs, Applied Biosystems, and MDS SCIEX sign agreement

The authors define robustness, instroduce a few approaches to designing a robustness study, and discuss data analysis necessary to help ensure successful method implementation and transfer as a part of method validation protocol.