ADV06-15_1-412

71 / 413

Tradeshows are an incredibly important way for us to meet with
you face-to-face and share our latest breakthroughs. In fact, we have
travelled to 24 tradeshows in 7 countries this year, and we have just
as many planned for 2012! To catch us at a future event, consult
And, in case you missed them, here’s a
look into 2 featured events we attended:
HPLC 2011 | June 19–23
This June, more than 1,300 analysts trav-
eled to Hungary for what is one of the
premier liquid chromatography confer-
ences in the world. HPLC 2011 covered
topics from biomarkers to industrial
separations to Quality by Design (QbD).
We had the honor of meeting hundreds of terrific scientists and
discussing their work. Over the course of the 5-day show, we also
presented posters on LC phase selectivity, food safety, environmental
analysis, and clinical forensics. To read through our presentations or
contact the authors directly, visit
Be sure to watch for a special issue of Journal of Chromatography A
that will contain selected papers from HPLC 2011, and don’t forget to
make plans for next June, when the conference returns stateside in
Anaheim, CA. Finally, thank you to everyone in Budapest for a terrific
show in a beautiful city. Egészségedre! (To your health!)
- Ty Kahler
FPRW 2011 | July 17–20
Steven Bradbury, the Director of the U.S.
EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs (U.S.
EPA OPP), opened the technical session of
FPRW with an excellent talk on “Priorities,
Challenges, and Vision” for his office. Steven
is from the “old school” and did not use
PowerPoint, but that did not make his wide-
ranging talk any less interesting. He led with
the National Children’s Study, which will examine environmental
effects, including pesticides in the diet, on the health of children.
When he noted that a successful outcome depended upon analytical
chemistry, he made an immediate connection with the audience.
It was obvious as Steven continued that U.S. EPA OPP has an ambi-
tious and challenging agenda set for itself. Harmonizing maximum
residue levels for commodities, studying honey bee colony col-
lapse disorder, monitoring water quality and surveying wetlands
(pyrethroids in sediments), mitigating risk of soil fumigation with
pesticides (using impermeable tarps), developing methods for nano-
technology analysis, advancing metabolomics... The list goes on, and
every item depends on rugged and sensitive analytical methods!
PS: Check out our FPRW posters at
- Jack Cochran
Event Recap
Hydrofracking:
Coming to a
Town Near You
From Colorado to New York,
we’re in the midst of a new kind
of gold rush as companies flock
to shale sites like Devonian,
Marcellus, and Utica to tap mas-
sive deposits of natural gas.
Several regions have what are
known by energy companies as
“stacked plays”—areas where
two or more gas shale regions
overlap, resulting in huge potential output—and there’s one in
Pennsylvania, putting Restek right in the middle of a growing debate.
To extract natural gas from shale, a process called hydraulic fracturing
(hydrofracking) is used, and while it is very effective, it also has raised
significant health, safety, and environmental concerns. As confirmed
by the Dimock case, where 14 homes had their well water contami-
nated with methane, natural gas released by fracking can find its way
into drinking water instead of storage tanks. That’s why many states
are expected to soon adopt a variation of Method RSK-175 for the
analysis of natural gas in drinking water, and why you can expect
many new posts about gas analysis on our blog!
Detecting Cancer Cola via HPLC
It looks like mom was right: too much
soda really can be bad for you! But the
biggest problem may not be obesity, dia-
betes, or tooth decay. It could be cancer.
There are 4 main ways to produce the car-
amel coloring that is added to many foods
including colas, coffee, beer, whisky, and
soy sauce. In particular, the process used to
make Class IV caramel color reacts sugars with ammonia and gener-
ates 4-methylimidazole (4MI or 4-MEI) as a by-product. The Center for
Science in the Public Interest (CSIP) is petitioning the FDA to ban the
use of 4MI-containing colorings because there is some indication that
it is harmful and possibly carcinogenic. In fact, 4MI has already been
classified by California as a chemical known to cause cancer (OEHHA,
2011). And, researchers at the University of California at Davis recently
found significant levels of 4MI in colas that far exceed what the state
considers to be safe. All of this has set the stage for analytical testing.
Analysis of 4MI has traditionally been accomplished by GC-MS with
derivatization or by reversed phase HPLC with ion pairing, but these
options are neither simple nor easily reproducible. Now, a simpler,
LC-MS-friendly HILIC analysis is available. Using an Ultra PFP Propyl
column, you can analyze 4MI employing typical LC-MS mobile phas-
es, water and methanol with formic acid, and isocratic conditions!
Look at our work in detail at
HPLC 2011
Budapest
| 800-356-1688 | Feedback? E-mail 5
Website : E-Mail : TelNo : 03 9762 2034 . . . in AUSTRALIA