Articles & Tech Notes

Did you ever calculate the value of the samples you put through your evaporator? In many cases, the value of a month’s throughput is more than the value of the instrument itself. We’re not talking about the value added by the evaporation step, but all the value added up to now in getting the samples this far. Why is this figure important? Because if your evaporation step were to damage your samples, and you had to remake them, this is how much money you would be throwing away. Now, there’s no reason why you should do anything to damage samples in your evaporator, provided you use it correctly. The point we’re making, though, is that your primary focus must be to get your samples through the process intact, and uncompromised. Getting them dry fast should be the second, not the first, priority. Here we’ll be dealing with the various aspects of sample protection, and the things to watch out for.

Scientists working at the Great Lakes chemical company site in Manchester, UK have an interesting approach to new product development. As well as developing their own new products, they are also responsible for analyzing their competitor’s products too. This branch of the giant US-owned company specialises in the manufacture of polymer additives and the analytical laboratory in Trafford Park, as well as providing analytical services to R&D and manufacturing, specialises in de-formulating their rivals’ products.

Many solvent evaporators are routinely sited inside fume extraction hoods because residual solvent vapour, remaining in the chamber at the end of a run, can expose the operator to unwelcome, and potentially harmful, odours when the system is opened. In many cases these situations can be improved significantly by simple changes in programming . “Odour reduction” adds a repeated vent and vacuum cycle to the end of a method, which purges the evaporation chamber of residual solvent vapours. Utilisation of this function may enable the evaporator to be sited on the open bench rather than taking up valuable fume hood space.

The detection of the abuse of synthetic insulins by doping laboratories is likely to become a routine requirement. The World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA) code normally requires the use of mass spectrometry to identify prohibited drugs but peptide hormones are currently excluded because of the difficulty of obtaining mass spectra from such large molecules at very low physiological concentrations. Recent developments in applying mass spectrometry to proteomics means that it is becoming feasible for doping laboratories to routinely apply such methodology to detect and confirm the abuse of peptide hormones. The methodology to detect and confirm the abuse of peptide hormones by mass spectrometry is preferred to the current use of immunoassays or other immuno-reactive techniques. Insulin is a clear example of how both endogenous insulin and its synthetic analogues can give a positive result with some immunological assays but mass spectral analysis can easily distinguish between them. The use of all types of insulin is prohibited by non-diabetic athletes but it is desirable if possible to identify which form of insulin has been used.