Investigation of pharmaceuticals in Missouri natural and drinking water using high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

A comprehensive method has been developed and validated in two different water matrices for the analysis of 16 pharmaceutical compounds using solid phase extraction (SPE) of water samples, followed by liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry. These 16 compounds include antibiotics, hormones, analgesics, stimulants, antiepileptics, and X-ray contrast media. Method detection limits (MDLs) that were determined in both reagent water and municipal tap water ranged from 0.

Optimization of urinary pteridine analysis conditions by CE-LIF for clinical use in early cancer detection.

The second leading cause of death in the US is cancer and early discovery of the disease has translated into reduced fatality rates. We have identified and performed a systematic investigation of a method for urinary pteridine analysis by using CE-LIF, which is believed to possess the potential to diagnose the presence of cancer even earlier than existing methodologies. Through system enhancements, we have been able to improve the resolution of the two least resolved sets of peaks (6,7-dimethylpterin versus 6-biopterin and D-(+)-neopterin versus 6-hydroxymethylpterin) from 0.

Study of uptake and loss of silica nanoparticles in living human lung epithelial cells at single cell level.

The toxicology of nanomaterials is a blooming field of study, yet it is difficult to keep pace with the innovations in new materials and material applications. Those applications are quickly being introduced in research, industrial, and consumer settings. Even though the cytotoxicity of many types of nanoparticles has been demonstrated, the behavior of those particles in a biological environment is not yet fully known.

Recent developments in the determination of urinary cancer biomarkers by capillary electrophoresis.

Investigation of effective biomarkers for cancers is currently a popular area of study in clinical and cancer researches, because it can potentially lead to pre-cancer screening or pre-cancer diagnosis and may provide useful information on cancer type and the disease's stage of progression. More and more biochemical or chemical fluid components of the human body such as urine, blood, and cerebrospinal fluid have been considered to contain biomarkers, which are useful in cancer researches, pre-cancer diagnosis, and cancer follow-ups during or after cancer treatment. Several modern analytical techniques, such as gas chromatography (GC), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), capillary electrophoresis (CE), and other separation techniques as well as hyphenated techniques, have been extensively used in study of cancer biomarkers.