LCGC North America-09-01-2007

This month's installment of "GC Connections" discusses factors that can help determine which type of liquid injection technique is appropriate for specific samples, including having to use existing inlet systems that are on-hand in the laboratory with samples for which they might not be ideally suited.

Single-cell PCR is an application of PCR technology, which deals with the nucleic acid in single cells rather than in a tissue sample or a pool of homogenous cells. While single-cell amplification has been recognized almost as long as the PCR technology itself, it was not considered a very efficient technique due to uncontrollable circumstances such as the lack of available primers and efficient cell-lysing techniques, which only allowed a small quantity of cell DNA to be amplified.

Cleaning validation is a major analytical application in the pharmaceutical industry. Here, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with charged aerosol detection is compared and contrasted to HPLC with UV detection showing comparable performance and several advantages for charged aerosol detection, especially for analytes that do not contain a chromophore.

In the fourth installment in a series on method development for liquid chromatography (LC), with an emphasis on devloping trouble-free methods quickly. John Dolan started out by considering some of the goals we might have and some method development strategies.

The Pittsburgh Conference announced that Dr. Leroy Hood will deliver the plenary lecture, Systems Biology and Systems Medicine, during the opening session of Pittcon 2008 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, New Orleans, Louisiana on 2 March 2008.

Columnist Ron Majors covers some of the highlights of HPLC 2007 including honorary sessions, best poster awards, and the latest developments in HPLC column technology.