Tom Linz of Wayne State University Wins Satinder Ahuja Award for Young Investigators in Separation Science

Tom Linz of Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan is the 2024 recipient of the American Chemical Society Analytical Division's Satinder Ahuja Award for Young Investigators in Separation Science. This award recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of separation science by a young chemist or chemical engineer from academia, industry, or national laboratories.

Linz was presented with this award at Pittcon in San Diego, California on February 25. The Linz laboratory specializes in developing lab-on-a-chip technologies for biochemical measurements. These microfluidic devices combine sample preparation with various analytical techniques like electrophoresis and immunoassays, enabling highly sensitive and efficient analysis of target analytes. These methods are applied to investigate fundamental biological processes related to disease development, providing valuable biomedical insights beyond the capabilities of existing instrumentation.

Recapping the Awards Session

Linz gave a lecture at Pittcon on thermal gel electrophoresis for biological characterizations. During the presentation, Liz spoke about the development of a versatile system to further enhance the analytical performance of microfluidic gel separations.

Susan Lunte of the University of Kansas presented “Separation and Detection Strategies for Reactive Oxygen and Nitrogen Species and Their Reaction Products.” In this lecture, she discussed new strategies to separate and detect the reaction products of reactive nitrogen and oxygen (RNOS) species with amino acids and peptides using capillary and microchip electrophoresis is presented.

Robert Kennedy of the University of Michigan followed with “Microfluidic Western Blot and LC/MS for Analysis of Islets of Langerhans.” Kennedy and his team developed a system based on capillary and microchip electrophoresis that reduces analysis time, reagent consumption, and time required for western blot. Kennedy demonstrated the system’s suitability for several biological samples, including islets of Langerhans. 

The session continued with Lisa Holland of West Virginia University and “Enzyme-based Capillary Separations with Biocompatible Gels.” In this presentation, nanogel technologies are described to create nanoliter reactions zones to interrogate biomolecules in seconds. This work is significant to separations because it transforms standard electrophoresis methods into sophisticated multifunctional separations that are programmed, erased, and repeatedly run.

The session concluded with “3D Printed Devices for Improving Cell Culture and Analytical Measurements,” with Scott Martin of Saint Louis University. This lecture described the use of 3D printing to create robust microfluidic devices that integrate 3D cell culture and analysis, with electrochemistry being used to detect neurotransmitters/modulators in close-to-real-time.