New microscale sample processing approaches for application to proteomics and bioanalysis

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The health and the well-being of Canadians rely not only on accurate diagnosis and effective treatment but also a pollution-free environment in which to live. Chemical analysis plays a key role in such goals by helping uncover the causes of disease, or by following a patient's drug therapy response, or by testing water, soil and air for toxins to both plants and animals. By far the most common methods for said chemical analyses are grouped under the term “analytical separations”, encompassing the powerful techniques of chromatography, electrophoresis and mass spectrometry. The complexity of samples submitted for chemical analysis, sometimes containing over a thousand different compounds, is such that rigorous sample preparation techniques are required prior to the analytical separation. In fact, the selectivity and detection sensitivity of the above-mentioned analytical separation methods improve greatly with preparation techniques tailored to the analysis. Therefore, our research program is dedicated to developing and optimizing sample preparation methods with specific application to microliter scale bioanalysis and towards enhancing the power of state-of-the-art analytical separations. ***The identification of proteins and the understanding of their biological interactions is key to developing diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. Therefore, we are designing sample preparation methods that aid in protein determination, including proteins at low abundance because these are the ones suspected to have relevance for disease diagnosis. We are developing fractionation strategies and enzymatic methods that render proteins easier to analyze by mass spectrometry and address the current trend towards miniaturization. Capillary electrophoresis is our main microscale method, which is ideally suited because nanolitre volumes can be injected, it is easily automated and it can be translated into microchip format for additional miniaturization. Our immobilized enzyme microreactor methods are being developed to allow simple construction and rapid protein digestion for better mass spectrometry analysis. Innovative combinations of these microscale techniques and methods applied to minute sample volumes has the long term potential to impact disease diagnosis and monitoring in humans and animals. **