Column: MS in Practice - LC-GC Europe

Q&A

01 October 2006
By: Michael P. Balogh

Producers of mass spectrometers design their instruments to work well within specific parameters.

Techniques for Structure Elucidation of Unknowns: Finding Substitute Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients in Counterfeit Medicines

01 February 2008
By:Michael P. Balogh

This month's column discusses the practicalities of detecting substitutions in counterfeit pharmaceuticals. The approaches used are practical "take home" lessons readers can apply to analyse unknowns in any mixture.

Indentifying Packaging-Related Drug Product Impurities

01 December 2007
By:Micheal P. Balogh, John D. Lennon III, Alan D. Hendricker, Thomas N. Feinberg

This month's instalment of "MS in Practice" provides a slightly different view of how practitioners employ the skills of interpretation that have been the focus in recent columns.

Ionization Revisited

01 June 2007
By:Michæl P. Balogh

Electrospray ionization (ESI), atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) and atmospheric pressure photoionization (APPI) are now among the most commonly used techniques for creating ions, especially from small-molecule compounds in solution. They have become so familiar that now many articles only refer to them briefly. Yet each technique has dramatic predictive strength on the outcome and limits of an analysis.

Interpretation of Mass Spectra, Part 1: Developing Skills

01 January 2007
By:Michael P. Balogh

Although interpreting MS spectra can be a thorny problem at least some of the time, in the words of Fred McLafferty, "All you are dealing with is the mass of the molecule and the masses of the pieces."

DESI, IMS and Resurgent Challenges to HPLC–MS

01 July 2006
By:Michael P. Balogh

Liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) has been increasingly indispensable in most analytical pursuits. Such acceptance would not have occurred without encouraging, early academic efforts and also the efforts of early practitioners who pressed manufacturers to improve and extend electrospray's capabilities. I briefly described the commercialization of LC in its halcyon period of the early 1990s in a 1998 article.¹

Profiles in Practice Series: A Revolution in Clinical Chemistry

01 April 2006
By:Michael P. Balogh

An increasingly available and attractive clinical analysis method, LC?MS nevertheless fails to directly benefit from the knowledge and experience of clinicians steeped in the immunoassay tradition.

Profiles in Practice Series: The High-Speed State of Information and Data Management

01 January 2006
By:Michael P. Balogh

The effects of increased data demand coupled with the torrential data outflow of our instruments can overwhelm even the most IT-savvy.

Profiles in Practice: Advances in Science and Geopolitical Issues

01 November 2005
By:Michael P. Balogh

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that each year in the United States, 76 million people get sick, 325000 are hospitalized and 5000 die from food-related illnesses. Food-borne illness is a serious public health problem. —National Library for the Environment, Food Safety Issues in the 107th Congress, 2001, Donna U. Vogt.