The Column-11-16-2011

The development and commercialisation of new medical drugs is a complex and costly process, but increasing pressure is being placed on drug companies to accelerate the timeline from discovery of new drugs, through to clinical trials and then to their release onto the market. The pharmaceutical industry continues to demand ever more advanced products aimed at improving health and the quality of modern-day life.

Reversed-phase ultra high performance liquid chromatography (RP-UHPLC) columns are the most widely used UHPLC columns in analytical separations. As with other reversed-phase columns, analytes are separated in RP-UHPLC columns due to their differences in the degree of hydrophobic interaction with the stationary phase.

The use of flow splitters between the two dimensions in on-line comprehensive two-dimensional liquid chromatography (LC×LC) has received little attention in comparison to their use in two dimensional gas chromatography.

Great things can be undone by not paying attention to all of the small details!

The dating of silk textiles can be problematic for experts but a team of researchers at the Smithsonian Institute has developed a new method with this as their main objective.

A recent study on the evolution of avian sex chromosomes has focused on retroposons as a novel method for reconstructing gametologous gene trees.

Janet Kelsey of The Column spoke to Frédéric Cheviron, Sales & Marketing Manager for Chiral Technologies Europe, about the technology they use in drug development and how companies can improve their method development.

The increased value of fresh sweet corn over the last decade has led to an investigation into the characteristics that increase marketability.