Articles

Tony (A.N.) Davies is impressed with the service form the UK's EPSRC National Mass Spectrometry Service Centre.

M. Hässig,^a K. Altwegg,^a H. Balsiger,^a B. Schläppi,^a J.J. Berthelier,^b B. Fiethe,^c S.A. Fuselier,^d J. De Keyser^e and M. Rubin^f

^aPhysikalisches Institut, University of Bern, Sidlerstr. 5, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
^bLATMOS, Saint Maur, France
^cInstitut of Computer and Network Engineering, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany

We conceive selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry, SIFT-MS, primarily as a real-time, absolute, analytical technique that can meet the challenge of the immediate analysis of humid exhaled breath for rapid clinical diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring. This objective has certainly been achieved and the application of SIFT-MS has quickly been expanded into many other areas where real time, immediate analyses of trace compounds in air are desired, as we have demonstrated in recent reviews and which we summarise at the end of this article.

This article shows that MALDI high resolution mass spectrometry demonstrated directly that Hev b 6 and Hev b 1, and also truncated forms thereof, are present on the inner surface of medical NRL gloves. The speed and high accuracy of the applied method and instrumentation makes the detection of surface associated proteins feasible without any prior protein extraction procedure (in situ localisation).

The Foundation for Analytical Science & Technology in Africa (FASTA) is a charitable company that was established in 2005 in response to a request to provide a GC-MS to the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture & Technology (JKUAT) in Nairobi, Kenya. FASTA was founded by Steve Lancaster of BP and Barrie Nixon of Mass Spec UK Ltd. The objectives of the organisation are to support scientific education, analytical research and the preservation of the environment in Africa via capacity-building and technology transfer.

During the last few decades, solution and solid state techniques have been utilised to obtain information about the properties of supramolecular host–guest complexes. Mass spectrometric analysis of these fragile non-covalent complexes has been focused on the determination of the molecular mass of the interacting molecules and the analysis has concentrated on the characterisation of covalent compounds. Since the invention of the soft ionisation techniques [namely ESI (electospray ionisation) and MALDI (matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation)] and their development for mass spectrometry (MS) instruments, the area and way that MS analysis is used have greatly changed and expanded. In particular, ESI has attained a steady position for the analysis of biomolecules, their non-covalent complexes and other rather fragile systems, which were earlier impossible to study by mass spectrometric methods. Today, MS can be employed not only for molecular weight identification purposes but also for sophisticated analyses on versatile properties of compounds. In the area of supramolecular chemistry, MS studies are becoming more and more general, although MS utilisation is still quite limited.

We will consider here the analytical aspects involved in the measurements of illicit drugs and their metabolites in wastewater samples by HPLC-MS/MS.

Luc Alexis Leuthold, Emmanuel Varesio and Gérard Hopfgartner

Life Sciences Mass Spectrometry, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, EPGL, University of Geneva, University of Lausanne, 20 Bd d’Yvoy, 1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland

Rich Sleeman, Jim Carter and Karl Ebejer

Mass Spec Analytical Ltd, Building 20F, Golf Course Lane, Filton, Bristol, BS99 7AR, UK