SC 1 - Principles and Applications of LC-MS

Prof. Dr. Gérard Hopfgartner, Life Sciences Mass Spectrometry, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Geneva and University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Course contents:
The focus of this short course is to provide insights into the principles of LC-MS(/MS) for qualitative and quantitative analysis. The first part of the course will review the basics of mass spectrometry, mass analyzers, and ionization techniques (ESI, APCI, and APPI) used in connection with LC-MS. The second part will focus on practical aspects of LC-MS such as: what do we need to do to make it work and what are the pitfalls. The third part will provide selected examples of applications of LC-MS in pharmaceutical, chemical, toxicological, environmental, and food analysis as well as new trends.

Instructor:
Gérard Hopfgartner studied chemistry at the University of Geneva (Ph.D. 1991). He was a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University in the domain of atmospheric pressure ionisation LC-MS/MS. In 1992 he joined the Pharmacokinetic and Drug Metabolism Department of F .Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel. During a period of almost 10 years he developed LC-MS/MS approaches for qualitative and quantitative analysis. Since April 2002 Dr. Hopfgartner is a full Professor for Pharmaceutical Analytical Chemistry at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Geneva, where he is also in charge of the mass spectrometric platform of the Faculty of Sciences.  His scientific interests are separation techniques combined with mass spectrometric detection for life sciences, high speed qualitative and quantitative analysis, drug metabolism, collision induced fragmentation mechanisms, metabolomics, and proteins analysis.