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April 4, 2011 - Volume 89, Number 14
- p. 40
Cover Story
- New Year, New Instruments
- Analyze This: Mass Spec And Spot Analysis Highlighted At C&EN Pittcon Luncheon
- Carbon-based Microdevices
- Pittcon Editors’ Award Winners
- Analytical Instrumentation
- Lab Optimization
- Chromatography & Separations
- Pittcon Potpourri
Topics Covered
Latest News
October 28, 2011
Speedy Homemade-Explosive Detector
Forensic Chemistry: A new method could increase the number of explosives detected by airport screeners.
Solar Panel Makers Cry Foul
Trade: U.S. companies complain of market dumping by China.
Novartis To Cut 2,000 Jobs
Layoffs follow similar moves by Amgen, AstraZeneca.
Nations Break Impasse On Waste
Environment: Ban to halt export of hazardous waste to developing world.
New Leader For Lawrence Livermore
Penrose (Parney) Albright will direct DOE national lab.
Hair Reveals Source Of People's Exposure To Mercury
Toxic Exposure: Mercury isotopes in human hair illuminate dietary and industrial sources.
Why The Long Fat?
Cancer Biochemistry: Mass spectrometry follows the metabolism of very long fatty acids in cancer cells.
A perennial event at each Pittcon is the C&EN Luncheon, where prominent figures from the instrument industry and analytical research discuss the latest trends. This year, Andy Boorn, chief operating officer of AB Sciex, and Fabio Garofolo, vice president of bioanalytical services at Algorithme Pharma, Laval, Quebec, addressed the attendees.
Boorn confirmed that the instrument business has improved since the doldrums of 2009. For example, he said the market for mass spectrometers was $2.6 billion in 2010, 8.5% better than in the previous year. Even more growth, at levels of 15%, came in sales of liquid chromatographs interfaced to tandem mass spectrometers (LC-MS/MS instruments). Those instruments are aimed at the food safety and clinical research markets, Boorn said.
Trends in the MS field include increased software intelligence and efforts to make mass spectrometers more accessible to nonexperts, he said. He also noted an area for future progress: “improving the efficiency with which we get ions from the ion source to the instrument.”
In turn, Garofolo discussed speeding drug discovery with dried blood spot analysis—the use of LC-MS/MS to analyze blood spots obtained by finger sticks and deposited on cards (C&EN, Jan. 17, page 13). Dried blood spot analysis has been in use for the past 40 years, mostly for neonatal and infectious-disease screening. It has become increasingly popular since 2008, when evidence arose for its convenience and ability to reduce costs in preclinical and clinical trials.
Garofolo noted that since blood is a complex type of sample, improvements are necessary in dried blood testing’s detection sensitivity and selectivity against interferences. But if those goals can be achieved, the simplicity and low costs of dried blood spot analysis could lead to a bright future for this versatile technique, he said.
- Chemical & Engineering News
- ISSN 0009-2347
- Copyright © 2011 American Chemical Society
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