Chair at York

Dr Jane Thomas-Oates has been appointed to a new Chair in Analytical Science in the Department of Chemistry at the University of York, UK. She is currently Senior Lecturer in Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences at the Michael Barber Centre for Mass Spectrometry at UMIST (Manchester, UK).

The new Chair at York was won through a national competition and will be sponsored by the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), together with support to the value of £1.4 million from industrial partners. Dr Thomas-Oates is a biological mass spectrometrist; much of her research is focussed on the study of plant–microbe interactions, in particular those that offer natural alternatives to the use of fertilisers and pesticides. The rapidly expanding field of proteomics features in much of her work, and she will be working with colleagues in Chemistry, Biology and Computer Science to develop and implement new methods for proteomics applications.

Miniature mass spec

Dr Steve Taylor, of the University of Liverpool’s Solid State Electronics Research Group, in collaboration with Professor Richard Syms and researchers at Imperial College, London, UK, has developed a miniature quadrupole mass filter based around fibre optics and silicon technology. The electromagnetic field is created by optical fibres coated in gold. The fibres are 0.5 mm in diameter and from 30 mm to 10 mm in length. The inscribed radius, r₀, of the gap encompassed by the fibres is 500 µm. Which is a factor of 10 smaller than previously achieved, and it is claimed that there is potential to make it even smaller.

The miniature MicroQuad mass spectrometer fully assembled with ion source and detector on a 70 mm vacuum flange, alongside a £1 coin (22 mm diameter) to show the scale.

The key to the use of non-rigid materials like the optical fibres is the ability to align them, space them and support them in the precise geometry required. This was achieved by mounting the fibres in a silicon framework. The fibres are spaced in pairs, each held in a V-shaped groove micromachined in a silicon wafer. Each pair of fibres is positioned directly opposite another pair in a second wafer, with a space between them; the precise distance is determined by spacing rods bonded to each wafer. The resulting quadrupole can be arranged in single cell format or arrayed. s.taylor@liv.ac.uk, r.syms@ic.ac.uk.

Instrument sales on the up

The analytical and life science instrument industry is forecast to grow at a rate of 9.2% in 2002, according to Strategic Directions International (SDi) in the 15 January issue of Instrument Business Outlook. Growth was 7.3% in 2001, to over $21 billion. Despite adverse macroeconomic conditions and a slowdown in sales in the third quarter, instrument sales continued to show healthy growth in 2001. Driving this growth were sales of instruments for life science research, including mass spectrometers, microarray readers and related bioinformatics software.

SDi predict the larger growth in 2002 due to the introduction of new life science techniques and faster growth for traditional analytical instrument sales stimulated by an economic recovery in the second half of the year. www.strategic-directions.com.

Accurate mass

A feasibility study carried out by LGC, Teddington, UK, in 2001 highlighted the rapid growth in the use of accurate mass measurements in the chemical and biochemical industries. It identified a clear need for guidance on undertaking key aspects of the methodology in order to obtain robust measurements.

A collaborative study to evaluate the variation in accurate mass measurement across a broad range of instrument types will be co-ordinated by LGC this year. An unknown compound (around molecular weight 450) will be sent to the collaborators, along with a questionnaire to be completed with the experimental work. Collaborators will be asked to mass measure the molecular ion using their local protocols and whichever ionisation technique or techniques that they wish. The mass measurements and completed questionnaire will be returned to LGC for data evaluation. The data will be then used as part of the development of a best practice guide.

If you would like to take part in this collaboration or require further information, contact Dr Tony Bristow at LGC. tony.bristow@lgc.co.uk.

Proteomic screening for ovarian cancer

A paper published in The Lancet describes a sensitive and non-invasive computer-assisted technique which assesses proteomic patterns in blood and could be a step towards effective screening for ovarian cancer. Detection of early-stage ovarian cancer is poor, and the disease is often detected at a late stage when five-year survival is only around 35%. Pathological changes within the ovaries might be reflected in proteomic patterns in the blood; Emanuel F. Petricoin III from the US Food and Drug Administration, and colleagues from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Correlogic Systems Inc., Bethesda, USA, developed a bioinformatics process to identify proteomic patterns in blood that could distinguish malignant from benign tumours within the ovary.

Following analysis of blood proteins with mass spectrometry, a new algorithm was used to identify the key diagnostic pattern. Initial assessment of 50 women with known ovarian cancer and 50 women without disease enabled the creation of distinct proteomic patterns that distinguished cancer from non-cancer. The discovered pattern was then used to classify an independent set of 116 masked blood samples: 50 from women with ovarian cancer, and 66 from unaffected women or those with non-malignant disorders.

The computer-generated algorithm identified a pattern that, in the initial assessment, completely segregated cancer from non-cancer. The discriminatory pattern correctly identified all 50 ovarian cancer cases in the masked set, including all 18 stage I cases. Of the 66 cases of non-malignant disease, 63 were recognised as not being cancer. This result yielded a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 95% (i.e. 5% false-positive results). www.thelancet.com.

Stainless steel corrosion

Corrosion of stainless steel can cause serious problems. It is highly localised and apparently random. Pits can drill through a substantial thickness of steel in a relatively short time, and they can cause leaks or act as points from which cracks can initiate. In the manufacturing process, iron is alloyed with chromium. As the steel cools, sulphur-rich impurity particles form which solidify at a lower temperature than the steel.

A team at Imperial College, London, UK, has used focussed ion beam secondary ion mass spectrometry (FIB-SIMS) to study the region around these impurity particles. This has been found to have significantly less chromium than the rest of the steel: it appears that during cooling the impurity particles “suck” chromium out of the steel around them, creating a small area that is not stainless. This research is reported in the 14 February issue of Nature. www.nature.com, www.ic.ac.uk.

Public awareness

The European Commission, Research Directorate General has launched a call for proposals for Raising Public Awareness of Science and Technology. The deadline is 15 April 2002. www.cordis.lu/improving/public-awareness/home.htm, www.cordis.lu/scienceweek, improving@cec.eu.int.

NIR award

The first Büchi NIR Award, worth $5000, has been made to Jim Drennen III and his group at the School of Pharmacy, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA. The award was made for his work on the problem of monitoring powder blend homogeneity in the mixing process of drug material. Jim Drennen and his team devised an NIR-based method for monitoring the process using spectroscopic and imaging techniques at the same time. It enables the optimisation of both the mixing quality and the duration of the mixing process. Furthermore, the residual inhomogeneities are quantified and their spatial distribution becomes visible.

Jim Drennen receives the Büchi 2001 NIR Award. From the left: Tom Kapral (Büchi, USA), Jim Drennen, Arwa El-Hagrasy, Hanspeter Kellerhals (Büchi, Switzerland).

Entries are invited for the 2002 Büchi NIR Award. nir.award@buchi.com.

EU science prize

The Descartes Prize, worth €1,000,000 is the EU’s top science prize, and entries need to be in by 15 March 2002. The Descartes Prize is open to teams of scientists who have achieved outstanding results in European collaborative research projects. Entries can be from any science field, and are not limited to EU-funded research projects; collaborations involving teams from outside the EU are also eligible. www.cordis.lu/descartes.

HTC award

During the 7th International Symposium on Hyphenated Techniques in Chromatography and Hyphenated Chromatographic Analysers (HTC-7) held in Bruges, Belgium, from 6 to 8 February, the HTC Award was presented to Dr Aviv Amirav for the most innovative paper or poster contribution at the meeting. Aviv Amirav is Professor of Chemistry at Tel Aviv University, Israel.

Pat Sandra (right), presenting the HTC Award to Aviv Amirav.

The award was based on two contributions: “A New Approach for Electron Ionization LC-MS” and “Supersonic GC-MS”. In the LC-MS, the mobile phase is vaporised at atmospheric pressure, expended through a supersonic nozzle into the vacuum system as neutral molecules. The vibrationally cold molecules in the supersonic molecular beam are ionised at 70 eV electrons in a fly-through EI ion source.

The HTC Award is sponsored by Elsevier Science. More details on Aviv Amirav’s research can be found at www.tau.ac.il/chemistry/amirav.