There is a rightfully high expectation from consumers that the amounts of compounds and ingredients that producers report in their goods are accurate down to trace levels. Whether personally or professionally, we all rely on this analytical information coming from laboratories that enables critical decisions to be made. Analytical chemists have been performing quantitative studies…
As a graduate student at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Roger Linington discovered his future life’s work serendipitously. While studying sponges, it became clear to him that one of the challenges in studying macroorganisms is their limited or slowly replenishing supply. To perform mechanism and mode-of-action studies, he needed a larger, more accessible source…
“Fast is fine; but accuracy is everything.” The quote is attributed to the famous Wyatt Earp, a sharpshooter and lawman who, with help from his two brothers, sent three outlaws to their graves in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona in 1881. One hundred and twenty five years later, Dr. Rob Fitzgerald…
Ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) is a technique that differentiates ions based on their size, shape, charge, and mass. While often used in small, portable devices at airports and remote locations for rapidly detecting small molecules whose mobility is known (for example, certain narcotics and explosives) when coupled with liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC/MS), IMS provides an…
As infectious diseases go, tuberculosis (TB) is clearly one of the worst. Easily spread through the air by those with an active infection, it is a scourge that is decimating developing countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that, in 2014, 9.6 million people fell ill with the disease and 1.5 million died, with 95%…
Interest in ion mobility mass spectrometry (IMS) technology is growing rapidly. The signs are everywhere. Since the year 2000, the number of abstracts submitted to ASMS mentioning ion mobility has grown more than 10-fold – from 30 to more than 350 in 2015. For most of that time, ion mobility has been available commercially in…
As regulators focus in on the critical quality attributes of biotherapeutics, what can biopharmaceutical labs in late development or QC do to increase confidence in their bioseparations – other than to run more assays?
According to published reports by Hiscox UK in 2008, just listening to the sound of a sports car increased salivary testosterone levels in male and female participants. Another study, by Gad Saad et al, measured a testosterone increase in men who were given the opportunity to drive a $150,000 Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet for an…
Tea is very important to them! If Waters Wilmslow ran out of tea it is likely the MS Research Team would struggle to function. The ancient Chinese Ruler, Emperor Jing Di, took tea to the grave with him for a cuppa in the afterlife. Many treasures were found in his tomb including; food, weapons, ceramic animals,…
On Wednesday evening after dinner and my usual digestif, I was watching the webcast “Making Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry Routine” when my son walked by. “Wow dad, that’s kind of cool! What the heck is it?” he asked. “It’s ion mobility!! It’s an orthogonal and complementary resource for chromatography and mass spectrometry…” The digestif was…
Endangered analytical chemists face myriad obstacles today – lower than average job forecasts 1, costly and timely training, demand for more versatile knowledge, tighter regulations, and massive data management requirements. Perhaps most significantly, mass spectrometry market forecasts predict a lack of skilled users as a key market constraint2. Senior analytical chemists are presented with a…
Global trading of herbs and spices can be traced back for thousands of years. Historically they were considered a rare and precious commodity, but methods to determine their authenticity were only very basic, creating a compelling incentive to substitute with lower-value products with a low risk of the adulteration being discovered. This is clearly not…