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Proteins - especially monoclonal antibodies (MABs) - have become increasingly important in pharmaceutical work. However, there are some important differences between conventional, chemically-synthesized drugs and proteins. Because of the complex and weak structure of proteins, even a slight change in conditions, such as pH value, temperature, or mechanical stress, may lead to aggregation and a loss of activity or stability.

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There has been a significant resurgence in the development of antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) as target-directed therapeutic agents for cancer treatment. Among the factors critical to effective ADC design is the Drug Antibody Ratio (DAR). The DAR describes the degree of drug addition that directly impacts both potency and potential toxicity of the therapeutic, and can have significant effects on properties such as stability and aggregation. Determination of DAR is, therefore, of critical importance in the development of novel ADC therapeutics.

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The future of biological and clinical research will depend on technological innovations and cross discipline co-operation as science seeks a deeper understanding of increasingly complex biological systems. The 2016 recipient of the AES Mid-Career Award, Amy Herr, and her team at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, have explored these areas using a combination of chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering with strong foundations in biology, material science, and analytical chemistry to innovate new microfluidic analytical technology. She recently spoke to LCGC about this work.

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Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have identified the source of toxic emissions within electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) using headspace gas chromatography in tandem with mass spectrometry (HS-GC–MS) and high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC).

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Incognito ruminates on the woes associated with connecting liquid chromatography (LC) and gas chromatography (GC) columns correctly, and ponders a future where everything is connecting differently.

Continuing MilliporeSigma’s series of podcasts on the impact of water quality on chromatography techniques, Joe Plurad discusses the practical effects of ultrapure water in a specific area of analysis: The importance of water quality on perchlorate analysis by ion chromatography (IC).

I’ve done that thing where I’ve stated a very interesting title-I hope I can deliver something which lives up to it. I dislike it when people “overstate” their talk or poster titles at conferences to draw me in and then don’t deliver against the promise-I’ll let you judge how we go here.

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The 33rd International Symposium on Microscale Separations and Bioanalysis (MSB 2017) will be held from 26–29 March 2017, at Conference Center de Leeuwenhorst, The Netherlands, in the “largest flower garden of Europe” near to Amsterdam International Airport and North Sea beaches.

Top-down protein quantitation, especially using triple-quadrupole MS, but even in general, has hardly been pursued. To help fill this gap, we recently reported a systematic investigation of intact-protein quantitation using multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) on a triple-quadrupole MS system, and we believe that this approach can be a promising alternative route to consider going forward.

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A group of researchers has studied the migration of monomers and plastic additives from plastic food packaging in microwave heated homemade food and packed liquid food using QuEChERS and gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry.

Polymer Char are holding a “User Training Meeting” at the 6th International Conference on Polyolefin Characterization (ICPC), Shanghai, China, 6–9 November 2016.

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Doping and cheating the competition may be as old as competition itself. Doping horses for chariot racing was reported during the Roman Empire and doping is now commonly reported in the press. Advanced technologies such as ultrahigh-pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC) analysis coupled to ultrafast tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) detection provide excellent sensitivity for the analysis of horse doping agents.