October 29th 2024
Manitoba Centre for Proteomics and Systems Biology scientists produced a new means of predicting peptide retention times for hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) at acidic pH in formic-acid based eluents.
HPLC Teaching Assistant: A New Tool for Learning and Teaching Liquid Chromatography, Part II
December 1st 2016Part II of this series describes additional features of the HPLC Teaching Assistant software, including the possibility to simulate the impact of the mobile phase temperature on HPLC separations; understand the chromatographic behavior of a mixture of diverse compounds in both isocratic and gradient elution modes; show the influence of instrumentation (injected volume and tubing geometry) on the kinetic performance and sensitivity in HPLC; and demonstrate the impact of analyte molecular weight on thermodynamic (retention and selectivity) and kinetic (efficiency) performance.
HPLC Teaching Assistant: A New Tool for Learning and Teaching Liquid Chromatography, Part I
October 1st 2016This free software allows teachers to illustrate the basic principles of HPLC, such as chromatographic resolution, the van Deemter equation, and how to manipulate or adapt retention in reversed-phase HPLC.
HPLC Column Standardization in Pharmaceutical Development: A Case Study
August 1st 2016There can be significant benefits by standardizing HPLC columns in a pharmaceutical development laboratory. Here is a story of how one organization attempted to encourage its staff to develop HPLC methods using fewer column brands and dimensions to reduce waste and efforts in method transfers downstream.
Advancing Health: From Wellness to Submicrometer Particles
June 20th 2016The HPLC 2016 conference kicks off this afternoon with plenary lectures that focus on human health, spanning from the big picture of wellness to the details of characterizing monoclonal antibodies, with talks by Leroy Hood of the Institute for Systems Biology, Steven Carr of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and Mary Wirth of Purdue University.
Effects of Column Inner Diameter and Packed Bed Heterogeneities on Chromatographic Performance
June 1st 2016In recent years industry has been moving to columns with smaller and smaller inner diameters-moving from 4.6 and 3.0 mm i.d. columns to 2.1 mm, 1.0 mm, and even smaller. While small inner diameter columns have some clear advantages, they also bring challenges. Reduction of extracolumn volumes must be given greater consideration by both customers and manufacturers. Additionally, experimental evidence suggests that the very narrow confinement of chromatographic particles can result in packed bed structures that promote increased dispersion and reduced efficiency. This article focuses on the sources of band broadening within high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) columns with particular emphasis on eddy dispersion. The physical mechanisms of dispersion are discussed and a review of the current literature as it pertains to small inner diameter columns is presented.
A Universal Reversed-Phase HPLC Method for Pharmaceutical Analysis
June 1st 2016A universal generic HPLC or UHPLC method with a primary modern column that works well for most drug analyses in a few minutes would be an attractive idea for many laboratories. With advances in column technologies, this ideal scenario is becoming more realistic, as demonstrated in the proposed 2-min generic method shown here. In addition, rationales for the selection of column and operating conditions are discussed, together with ways to extend this generic method as a starting point for stability-indicating applications by simple adjustments of gradient time and range.
How to Tackle an Unknown: Notes from the Fourth Method Development Olympics at CoSMoS
May 1st 2016Put yourself in their spot: How would you tackle analyzing a bag of gummy bears that showed up on your lab bench? Here, we offer some insights from the very capable finalists at The Conference on Small Molecule Science (CoSMoS), which was held in August 2015 in San Diego, California.
HPLC Column Technology in a Bioanalytical Contract Research Organization
April 1st 2016HPLC–MS-MS is the go-to technique for high throughput analysis of small molecule therapeutics, metabolites, and biomarkers. Through technological advancements in the last decade, developing quality methods for a novel analyte in the contract research environment has become easier and faster than ever. Increasingly shorter run times, higher sensitivity, and greater separation have all become possible in a standard method. This is, in part, due to column technologies that have enabled the standardization of the method development process. Method efficiency and productivity are also improving because of emerging column technologies such as sub-2 µm particle size coupled with UHPLC–MS-MS, superficially porous particle columns, and microflow HPLC–MS-MS. Increasing efficiency and productivity in high throughput bioanalysis is becoming more important as the applications for HPLC–MS-MS expand to large molecules such as peptides, proteins, and oligonucleotides.
Positive Impacts of HPLC Innovations on Clinical Diagnostic Analysis
April 1st 2016The last decade has seen a series of advances in the field of liquid chromatography that have resulted in improvements for many clinical diagnostic services. These innovations have included the expansion of superficially porous particle columns, new or improved stationary phase options, and “user-friendly” multiple-channel HPLC instrument options that allow sequential analysis-a boon for low and moderate throughput laboratories with limited hardware. As a result, diagnostic services are able to offer faster turn-around-times and measure analytes in patient types and disease states that were previously problematic. This article presents examples of the impact these innovations have had in a number of hospital settings.
New HPLC Systems and Related Products Introduced at Pittcon 2016: A Brief Review
April 1st 2016This installment describes high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) instruments and related products introduced at Pittcon 2016 held in Atlanta, Georgia, or in the year prior. We highlight innovative features and benefits of new HPLC systems, modules, software, and product extensions.
Trends in Bioanalysis Using LC–MS–MS
December 1st 2015Bioanalysis of biologics presents a number of technical challenges. Ligand binding assays (LBA) are the gold standard bioanalytical technique for quantification of biologics in complex matrices such as serum and plasma but selectivity issues and the need for specific capture reagents limit their applicability in the drug discovery and development phase. Liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS) is widely used for highly selective and sensitive bioanalysis of small molecules. However, large molecule bioanalysis presents challenges including the need for extensive and complex sample preparation for LC-MS-MS. This article explores the limitations of LC-MS-MS for bioanalysis of biologics and some of the latest trends for overcoming these in bioanalysis laboratories.
Historical Developments in HPLC and UHPLC Column Technology: The Past 25 Years
November 1st 2015During the course of my scientific career beginning in the 1960s, I have grown up with the birth of modern LC column technology, the refinements of the instrumentation, and the development of widespread application of this most powerful separation and analysis technique. In this installment, I would like to share with you some of my observations and experiences with the beginning, the growth period, and the maturation of HPLC columns, where I have focused nearly 33 years of writing for this magazine. I will explore some of the early column breakthroughs beginning with the development of large superficially porous particles (SPP), the porous irregular and spherical microparticulate particles, inorganic and organic polymeric monoliths and the rebirth of the current generation of SPP. In next month’s installment I will look into my crystal ball and see what the future of HPLC and UHPLC holds.
LC Column Problems Everywhere 1
September 1st 2015I recently returned from a tour of teaching liquid chromatography (LC) classes to users in Minnesota, the United Kingdom, Poland, and Malta. One thing that always impresses me on such trips is that no one group has a corner on the LC problem market. The same problems pop up in most laboratories, no matter where they are located, the role of the laboratory (for example, analytical, forensic, production, research), what industry is involved, or the brands of instrumentation used.
Nonconventional Alternatives to LC–MS
An important attribute of a novel ionization process for use in mass spectrometry (MS) is its simplicity and flexibility to be hyphenated to conventional liquid-based separation methods.
A new HILIC column for saccharide analysis
March 18th 2015Due to the highly polar nature of saccharides, the analysis of sugars is typically achieved using Hydrophilic Interaction Chromatography (HILIC). Using a high polarity packing material, separation is based on the hydrophilic interactions of the sugars on the stationary phase surface typically using an eluent with a majority of polar organic solvent.
Extraction and Analysis of Acrylamide from Coffee
March 18th 2015Cooking at high temperatures causes a chemical reaction between certain sugars and asparagine which causes acrylamide formation. In this technical note, we explore how to use Novum™ SLE tubes to clean up a coffee matrix in order to quantitate known acrylamide levels. The recovery is especially significant when you consider the polar nature of the acrylamide (LogP -0.27). In addition to high recoveries (>90 %), the low values for the standard deviation and %CV indicates method reproducibility.