Comparing SIFT-MS and GC/MS in a Biomedical Context: A Solvent and Its Metabolite in Plasma
Dr Colin Hastie, Anatune, United Kingdom
Self-poisoning with professional agricultural pesticide products is responsible for about 20% of global suicide. Toxicity can come from the pesticide or the cosolvent carrier. Treatment of severe poisoning involves long-term intensive clinical care and is often unsuccessful. However, faster detection could aid earlier identification of pesticide poisoning thus allowing faster intervention, reducing mortality.
Traditionally this analysis is conducted on plasma samples using headspace-GC-MS. Here analysis by both automated headspace GC/MS and SIFT-MS is compared. The results obtained showed good correlation between techniques, with similar sensitivity, accuracy and precision, but with a four-fold increase in throughput for SIFT-MS over GC/MS.
Dr Colin Hastie is an Applications Chemist with Anatune Limited. He completed his Masters degree in forensic and analytical chemistry at the University of Strathclyde in 2004 and subsequently worked for Unilever in their safety and environmental assurance center as an analytical chemist. His main focus was on the determination of household and personal care ingredients in environmental matrixes to support environmental risk assessment. Whilst working at Unilever he completed a part-time PhD in environmental science from Lancaster University using a wide variety of chromatographic and mass spec techniques. At Anatune, Dr Hastie uses his experience in chromatography, SIFT-MS and GERSTEL automation to develop new applications.