Best of the Week: HPLC and ASMS Previews; HILIC and Direct Online Disruption of LNPs

This week, LCGC International published a variety of articles on trending topics in separation science, including previews of HPLC 2025 and interviews with some of this year’s ASMS award winners. Below, we’ve highlighted some of the most popular articles that were published this week.

We’d love to hear from you! Is there a topic you’d like to see covered in LCGC? Share your ideas with us—we value your feedback and are committed to exploring the subjects that matter most to our readers. Email chroncich@mjhlifesciences.com with your thoughts. Happy reading!

HPLC 2025 Preview: On the Road with Your Chromatograph?

Ibraam Mikhail, Shing Chung Lam, Andrew Gooley, Kurt Debruille, Brett Paull

There has recently been a significant uptake in interest in small-footprint and compact high performance liquid chromatographs (HPLCs) that deliver portability and the potential for application to on-site and in-field analysis. There are a number of manufacturers currently producing liquid chromatographs, some of which are marketed as “portable,” including standard HPLC and variants thereof, that is, ion chromatography (IC). As part of our preview series for HPLC 2025, Brett Paull from the University of Tasmania, Tasmania and his team describe the latest development in portable liquid chromatography (LC) instruments and their experience in taking portable systems out to the field.

Honoring Mentors and Mentoring Future Generations: An Interview with Christian Bleiholder

Aaron Acevedo

Every year at the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) conference, awards are presented to honor veteran and newcomer researchers making notable contributions in the field of mass spectrometry (MS). One such award is the Ron Hites Award. The award, named after Ron Hites, who served as the president of ASMS from 1988 to 1990, is given each year for an exemplary paper published in the previous volumes of the Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, which he founded in 1988. It was meant to honor Hites’ notable contributions to ASMS. This year, the Ron Hites Award was given to Christian Bleiholder of Florida State University. In the final moments of our interview with Bleiholder, he discusses the people who mentored him early on in his career and shares what advice he wishes future scientists to know.

Hydrophilic Interaction Chromatography (HILIC) and Direct Online Disruption of Lipid Nanoparticles

John Chasse

Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are essential for delivering messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) therapeutics, but assessing key quality attributes (CQAs) like mRNA integrity and encapsulation efficiency is difficult due to complex and labor-intensive methods that risk mRNA degradation. Two proof-of-concept hydrophilic interaction chromatography (HILIC) methods were developed in a joint study conducted by the University of Geneva (Switzerland), Sanofi, and the Waters Corporation—one for disrupting LNPs and retaining the mRNA, and another for detecting only unencapsulated mRNA to assess encapsulation efficiency. LCGC International spoke to Jonathan Maurer, first author of the paper that resulted from this study, about the methods and the efforts that led up to their development.

Winning the ASMS 2025 DEIA Mentorship Award: An Interview with Jennifer Geddes-McAlister

Aaron Acevedo

Every year at the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) conference, awards are presented to honor veteran and newcomer researchers making notable contributions in the field of mass spectrometry (MS). One example of these awards is the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Mentorship Awards. These awards recognize ASMS members who demonstrate exceptional service in the STEM mentoring or recruitment of individuals from groups underrepresented in MS. One of this year’s recipients is Jennifer Geddes-McAlister of the University of Guelph. In the first part of our interview, she shares her thoughts on winning the DEIA Mentorship Award and discusses her laboratory group’s work in greater detail.

HPLC 2025 Preview: HPLC 2025 Hits Bruges

Alasdair Matheson

The 54th International Symposium on High Performance Liquid Phase Separations and Related Techniques (HPLC 2025) will be held from Sunday through Thursday, June 15–19 2025, in Bruges, Belgium. As part of our preview series leading up to this year’s conference, LCGC International spoke to the Scientific Committee to find out what’s in store.