Chemical Separation and Detection Techniques and Their Wide Ranging Applications

我们的计划旨在为生物医学和生物制药研究开发先进的化学分离和分子表征技术。这些技术还将用于推动环境科学的发展，通过提供新的工具来识别和识别污染源，跟踪其移动和量化复杂的多组分污染物。*凭借过去6年开发高影响技术的坚实记录，我们将主要致力于开发生物制药和生物医学研究迫切需要的改进的连续电液动力净化系统和在线样品浓缩技术。为了提纯自由溶液中的生物活性分子，将开发操作更简单、能够处理真实生物样品的新设计的电流体动力装置。基于电容式离子富集原理的在线预富集装置将被设计和建造，以提高高性能检测器(如质谱仪)的灵敏度，从而减少对大规模样品清理的要求，从而可以测定复杂样品中的低丰度组分，并且可以很容易地观察和表征以前难以检测的化合物。*将创建一个更强大、更灵敏的基于毛细管电泳质谱的分析平台，用于表征蛋白质的翻译后修饰，以及探索蛋白质上复杂碳水化合物分子的结构和功能细节。我们将努力使生物制药行业最令人垂涎的分析方法之一-毛细管等电聚焦-MS成为现实，以便在不中断生产的情况下及时识别基因工程生物疗法的生物变异来源。这些技术还将用于解决体内细胞存活机制的谜团，并用于开发保护方法，以提高心脏直视手术患者的安全性。*在这一领域开发的广泛技术对加拿大和世界各地的许多研究和行业活动至关重要。加拿大人的主要担忧之一是阿尔伯塔省北部油砂沥青生产对环境的影响。由于沥青回收过程中的有毒副产物油砂酸的复杂性，目前还没有关于这些化合物排放到环境中的限制的规定。我们将开发可靠的分析方法，以确定具有代表性的物种，并量化与释放到环境中的有毒化合物总量相关的数量，从而为监管机构提供必要的关键信息，以实施保护环境的政策，同时允许合理的工业活动。*

Our program aims to develop advanced chemical separation and molecular characterization technologies for biomedical and biopharmaceutical research. These technologies will also be used in advancing environmental science by providing new tools to identify and fingerprint the source of pollution, tracking their movement and quantify complex multi-component pollutants.****With the solid track record in developing high impact technologies in the last 6 years, we will focus our effort mainly on developing improved continuous electro fluid dynamic purification systems and on-line sample enrichment technologies that are urgently needed in biopharmaceutical and biomedical research. New designs of electro fluid dynamic devices that are simpler to operate and capable of handling real biological samples will be developed to purify bio-active molecules in free solution. On-line pre-concentration devices based on capacitive ion enrichment principles will be designed and constructed to improve the sensitivity of high performance detectors such as mass spectrometer, so that low abundance components in complex samples can be determined with reduced requirement for extensive sample clear-up, and previously hard to detect compounds can be easily observed and characterized.****A more robust and more sensitive capillary electrophoresis mass spectrometry based analytical platform will be created for the characterization of post translational modifications of proteins, as well as exploring the details of structure and function of complex carbohydrate molecules that are attached to the proteins. We will strive to make one of the most coveted analytical method in biopharmaceutical industry, capillary isoelectric focusing coupled to MS, a reality, so that the source of bio-variation of genetically engineered bio-therapeutics can be identified timely without interrupting production. The technologies will also be used to solve the mysteries of in vivo cell surviving mechanisms and in developing protection method to improve patient safety in open heart surgeries.****The wide ranging technologies developed in this area are essential for many of the research and industry activities in Canada and around the world. One of the major concerns for Canadians is the environmental impact of the oil sands bitumen production in Northern Alberta. Because of the complexity of oil sands acids, the toxic by-products of the bitumen recovery process, there are still no regulations regarding to the limit of these compounds released to the environment. We will develop reliable analytical methods to identify representative species and quantify the amount correlating to the total amount of toxic compounds released to the environment, thereby providing critical information needed by regulatory agencies to implement policies that will protect the environment while allowing reasonable industrial activities.***