New Analytical Techniques for Keele's Biomedical Research Laboratories

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Posted on 19 November 2012

Keele's research institute for Science and Technology in Medicine (ISTM) has invested £39,000 in the latest Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) equipment, coupled to Thermal Desorption (TD) capability, to support the future work of new lecturer Dr Wen-Wu Li, and his clinical and lab-based collaborators.

The new TD-GC-MS instrument has been installed in the multi-disciplinary laboratories at the Guy Hilton Research Centre, in the same suite in which the University's specialised Ion Flow Tube (SIFT) MS, developed by Professor David Smith FRS and Professor Patrik Spanel, is also located.  TD-GC-MS is widely used for analysis of metabolites, particularly volatile organic compounds, and the combination of GC-MS with SIFT-MS creates an even more powerful tool for the analysis of volatile compounds especially for breath, urine and cell cultures analysis, ensuring Keele remains at the forefront of this field.  Support for the new equipment came from the current allocation of capital equipment funds from the Higher Education Funding Council for England, and from within ISTM.

Dr Li moved to Keele a year ago, to take up the post of Lecturer in Analytical Biochemistry.  He had previously worked on the chemical biology of carbohydrate and proteins at Oxford University, and prior to that on plant biotechnology and protein chemistry in two German universities, based on his PhD in organic chemistry from Zhejiang University in China.  The GC-MS capability is also of interest to a wider range of researchers in ISTM as it can be applied to clinical chemistry and biochemistry; drug metabolism in pharmacokinetics; forensic science; chemical ecology; and food and environmental sciences.

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