Held June 16–21 in at the Anaheim Marriott in Anaheim, California, HPLC 2012, put on by the California Separation Science Society, hosted 815 attendees and 52 exhibitors. This was the conference’s first trip to Southern California. HPLC 2013 will be held in the Netherlands and Australia.

Starting the day on June 18 was a plenary lecture given by Richard Smith, PhD, of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Entitled “Advances in Multidimensional Liquid and Gas Phase Separation with MS for Proteomics,” the lecture discussed his lab’s work on biomarker discovery as part of the National Cancer Institute’s Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium. He explained his lab’s efforts using two-dimensional LC/MS/MS for biomarker discovery. Early on in his presentation, he highlighted the “gap between what we can do and what we can do routinely.” He noted the convergence of discovery and targeted approaches, resulting in the use of multiplex workflows, which has led to broader coverage of the human proteome. He discussed efforts to increase MS sensitivity, including the development of the SPIN (sub-ambient pressure ionization with nanoelectrospray) electrospray ionization source to reduce the loss of ions as they enter the MS. He also noted the development of the antibody-free PRISM (high pressure high resolution separation with intelligent selection and multiplexing)–selective reaction monitoring MS workflow for use with low levels of human blood plasma or serum. Ongoing work to increase MS sensitivity also involves ion mobility spectroscopy.

In his presentation, entitled “Challenges Encountered in Performing Ever Faster, More Efficient, Yet Practical Separations,” George Guiochon, PhD, of the University of Tennessee Knoxville discussed the current limitations of HPLC, including the theoretical problems with 1 µm core-shell particles. Used for the separation of small molecules, columns with such particles would result in heat effects generated by friction, resulting in deformed elution band profiles. To use such columns with large molecules would require nanoparticles of 150 nm, which would be difficult to make and assemble. Such columns could be used to separate proteins, but retention times would become much longer. He also described the system architecture to use with such particles that could minimize extra-column volume when using small volumes. Such a system’s design would have no sharp edges or turns, and short channels would connect directly to the sample injection device, the column and the detector.

In the exhibitor room, Agilent displayed its new quaternary pump for the 1290 Infinity UHPLC system, which has a maximum pressure of 1200 bar. The new pump provides flexibility for HPLC and UHPLC analyses. Agilent also told IBO that the legacy Varian preparative LC products now run on Agilent’s ChemStation software, enabling the use of a single software platform for analytical through pilot scale separations. Shimadzu displayed the new SIL-30ACMP Multiplate Autosampler, which can hold as many as six microtiter for the continuous analysis of 2,304 samples. Injection speed is seven seconds, compared with the industry standard of 40 seconds, according to a Shimadzu representative.

At the show, Thermo Fisher Scientific debuted its Thermo Scientific UltiMate 3000 XRS UHPLC system, which supports pressures up to 1250 bar and features a new flow cell design. The system integrates pumps designed for the Accela High Speed LC system. Thermo also introduced two phases for the Thermo Scientific Accucore line of core-shell columns, adding to the seven available phases. The Accucore 150-C18 and 150-C4 come in formats for analytical, micro and nanoseparations. Thermo also highlighted the Thermo Scientific EASY Spray ion source. The plug-and-play ion source allows a 50 cm Easy-Spray column to be plugged in for nanoflow LC/MS. The ion source contains a column heater and camera.

Optimize Technologies is a developer of HPLC connections, cartridges and other hardware fixtures that wants to take the tools out of the lab. The company showed its hand-tightened cartridge-based EXP Nano trap columns, which are recommended for use up to 20,000 psi. The reusable column can be used with any UHPLC system.