Aim
The aim of the course is to give advanced knowledge about the technical use of and possibility to create new analytical-chemical methods for characterisation and quantitation of low and high molecular weight compounds for drug-, food-, environmental-, polymer-, analytical-, biotechnology- and biochemical- analysis.

Knowledge and understanding
For a passing grade the student must

• Be able to describe and formulate strategies for characterisation and quantitation of low and high molecular weight compounds in analytical chemistry, medical chemistry, food chemistry, biochemistry and biotechnology.

• Be able to describe and formulate theory and applications of field-flow fractionation, and at advanced level formulate theory and applications for capillary electrophoresis and electrochromatography.

• Be able to describe, evaluate the choice of the chosen separation technology for analysis of different low or high molecular weight compounds and its optimisation.

• Be able to describe the theoretical and experimental background and base of the analytical applications for proteome analysis.

• Be able to describe and evaluate different modes of mass-spectrometric techniques for low and high molecular weight compounds.

• Be able to describe and understand different modern detection methods in analytical biotechnology, and biochemical analysis (drug-, food-,environmental-and polymeranalysis).

Skills and abilities
For a passing grade the student must

• Practically set up and use advanced analysis systems in the laboratory and perform macro-molecular analysis of, for example, protein based drug molecules.

• Take part in establishing; matrix assisted laser desorption –ionisation- time of flight mass spectrometry MALDI-TOF-MS) and liquid chromatography masspectrometry analysis (LC-MS) using electro-spray ionisation (ESI).

• Produce a technical report according to valid safety and quality standards and critically handle and evaluate discrepancies from expected results.

Judgement and approach
For a passing grade the student must

• Show abilities in handling common used actual methods and techniques in modern low and high molecular weight analysis.

• Be able to optimise and choose a series of different analytical techniques for a given problem.

• Analyse, interpret and critically evaluate scientific reports and from these construct and test a practical analysis method.

Contents
Sample pre-treatment, especially for bioanalysis.

Microanalytical techniques: in liquid chromatography (LC) and capillary electrophoresis (CE) and through microfabrication in silicon and plastic chips ("Lab-on-a-chip").

Macromolecule analysis: The special demands and methods in analysis of proteins within molecular biology are illustrated with e.g. drug proteins as examples. This represents the experimental basis for proteom analysis. Possibilities of polysaccharide analysis in modified natural sources are enlightened. Mass spectrometry (MS) with emphasis on LC-MS with electrospray ionisation (ESI) and matrix assisted laser desorption –ionisation- time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOFMS) is treated.

Application areas: Drug analysis: particularly enantiomer analysis, product analysis with emphasis on stability testing and dissolution profiles of drug formulations, and bioanalysis such as methods in pharmacokinetic studies. Chromatography - mass spectrometry is treated. Analytical biotechnology: protein characterisation and peptide analysis using LC, CE, and MS, particularly regarding recombinant proteins and drug peptides. Emphasis on size exclusion chromatography (SEC) and field-flow fractionation (FFF) in analysis of protein aggregation and reversed-phase chromatography (RPLC), ion-exchange chromatography (IEC), and hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC) in peptide and protein identification and characterisation, also in connection with peptide mapping after trypsin degradation and amino acid sequencing. The use of MALDI-TOF MS and LC-ESI MS in peptide and protein analysis is discussed.

Polymer analysis: SEC and FFF of modified natural polymers.

Detection systems: Electrochemical, optical (UV-spectrophotometry, fluorimetry, light scattering), and mass spectrometric detectors.

Literature
Compendia. Div. of Analytical Chemistry.
Laboratory text. Div. Analytical Chemistry.
Harris, D C: Quantitative Chemical Analysis. Seventh ed. Freeman 2007. ISBN: 0-7167-7041-5.