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Pittcon celebrates its 70th year with thousands of chromatographers from around the globe and a range of industries taking over the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, from 17–21 March 2019 for a week of education, research, instrumentation, and networking.

Click the title above to open the Current Trends In Mass Spectrometry March 2019 special issue in an interactive PDF format.

The challenges we face in troubleshooting problems with liquid chromatography (LC) separations are highly diverse. This month we take a closer look at topics that have garnered more attention recently.

This article discusses the use of emerging technologies that are complementary to established techniques, to significantly reduce these shortcomings for both synthetic cannabinoids and synthetic cathinones. In this vein, the utility of recently reported approaches including ultrahigh performance supercritical fluid chromatography (UHPSFC)–photodiode array (PDA) ultraviolet (UV)–MS, and GC–vacuum UV is discussed. To increase the specificity of analysis, multiple chromatographic techniques are commonly used. For the analysis of emerging drugs, a combination of GC and UHPSFC is recommended. The utility of a previously unreported coupled-columns approach for UHPSFC to significantly enhance resolution of synthetic cathinones is presented.

Biotherapeutics have become the hottest topic in pharmaceutical research over the past decade. With the increased interest in biotherapeutics, there has been a concomitant increase in new analytical methods for characterizing these large, complex molecules. This installment of “Column Watch” discusses advances in “bottom-up” analysis of monoclonal antibodies, while highlighting the role and importance column chemistry still plays in developing highly selective high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) methods for peptides.

A discussion of hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC) theory and its application to the analysis of proteins and biomolecules is presented.

In plant metabolomics, molecular fingerprints and additional molecular descriptors can be identified using recent developments in polarity-extended separations with serial coupling of reversed-phase LC and HILIC combined with ESI-TOF-MS.

A new high-throughput LC–MS/MS method meets the challenge of eliminating matrix effects for monitoring, with high specificity, polar organic pesticides such as glyphosate in food and water, while meeting targeted limits of detection.

Forensic scientists often encounter highly complex analytical problems related to crime scenes that would benefit from the capabilities of GC×GC–MS. However, this technique has not been fully explored to help benefit forensic laboratories.

We assess the advantages and disadvantages of 1.0-mm diameter columns.

A hybrid system is the worst possible choice for managing your regulated data.

In method transfer, carefully aligning the modules of the two systems is essential.

A new method to analyze low concentrations of the drug diclofenac in wastewater.

Pressure tuning makes it easy to change the orthogonality in the 2D space.

Ken Broeckhoven explains his pursuit of ever higher performance in HPLC.

Prof. Novotny discusses the joys of mentoring and the future of separation science.

This information is supplementary to the article “Middle-Up Characterization of the Monoclonal Antibody Infliximab by Capillary Zone Electrophoresis-Mass Spectrometry” that was published in the March 2019 issue of LCGC Europe.

Do you have questions about how to ensure data integrity? Then tune into this podcast series from LCGC. In this episode, hear from data integrity and quality systems expert Mark Newton about the shifting focus in data integrity, common problems and questions, and what you need to think about as you address data integrity in your company, or as you update software.

Do you have questions about how to ensure data integrity? Then tune into this podcast series from LCGC. In this episode, hear from data integrity and quality systems expert Mark Newton about dealing with data integrity issues arise in connection with sampling, sample preparation, aborted chromatographic runs, chromatographic integration, hybrid models, and more.

Do you have questions about how to ensure data integrity? Then tune into this podcast series from LCGC. In this episode, hear from data integrity and quality systems expert Mark Newton about the role of second-person review, the four Cs, training, oversight, and preparing for the future. 

The Column

Click the title above to open the LCGC Europe February 2019 regular issue, Vol 32, No 02, in an interactive PDF format.

Just as medical practitioners are able to discern worrying features from a variety of medical physics devices (electrocardiogram, electroencephalogram, ultrasound, for example), we need to develop the skill to identify worrying symptoms from our HPLC instrument output.

If you have a method or process that involves a number of different variables, multivariate optimization approaches can provide a faster route to optimum conditions and can lead to a more reliable outcome than using a one-factor-at-a-time approach. With a little study and practice, students and researchers can apply these optimization techniques, even if a complete understanding of the underlying statistical treatments is not immediately apparent.

Incognito recalls the words of wisdom from an “old-school” supervisor who mentored him on the art of effective trace analysis.

Extraneous peaks, unrelated to the solute to be characterized, are quite common in gel permeation chromatography/size-exclusion chromatography (GPC/SEC), especially when refractive index (RI) detection is used. This instalment of Tips & Tricks explains why system or ghost peaks appear and how to minimize their appearance.

A surge in the development and commercialization of monoclonal antibody (mAb)-based ther-apeutics has driven the requirement for accurate and reproducible analytical methods for pro-tein characterization. Monoclonal antibodies are popular biologic drug candidates, but are sus-ceptible to a myriad of modifications during manufacture and complex degradation pathways during purification and storage, often leading to distinct charge variants that require character-ization and quantification. Ion‑exchange liquid chromatography (IEX) is a well-accepted and widely used technique to separate various mAb charge variant species for the sake of charac-terization and profiling. With the most recent advances in analytical technologies, IEX can be used to help ensure the selection of stable and efficacious mAb drug candidates, from discov-ery through manufacturing.