Short Courses

Many industries are developing increasingly complex products, whose separation requires substantially more resolving power than that offered by state-of-the-art one-dimensional liquid chromatography. Two-dimensional liquid chromatography (2D-LC) techniques meet that need and are finding ever more application to the analysis of samples of moderate to high complexity.

This course provides hands-on training for practicing scientists, guiding participants step by step through the concepts and techniques required to develop LC-MS/MS methods. The focus is on practical issues related to developing LC-MS/MS methods for small molecules, with an emphasis on problem-solving skills drawn from real-world examples in the pharmaceutical industry and related fields. Participants will gain an updated overview and solid working knowledge of LC-MS/MS, including theoretical concepts, instrumental fundamentals, operating principles, column basics and selection, and key applications. Upon completion, participants will be equipped to independently develop their own LC-MS/MS methods. The course will also introduce emerging technologies and techniques such as monolithic chromatography and hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC). Since many attendees may work in the pharmaceutical industry, relevant concepts of regulation and validation under GLP and GMP will be discussed.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly shaping scientific research and technological development. From advances in molecular discovery to the rapid evolution of data-driven modeling and language-based systems, AI is influencing how knowledge is generated, evaluated, and applied. In analytical separation science, where experiments routinely produce complex and high-dimensional datasets, these developments create both opportunities and challenges. As a result, there is growing interest in understanding how AI methods can be meaningfully and responsibly applied within liquid-phase separations.

Oligonucleotides are a novel class of drugs with the potential to treat a wide spectrum of indications, including cancer, cardiovascular and metabolic conditions, neurological disorders, pulmonary and ophthalmic diseases. Several different modalities using oligonucleotides to treat disease have been successfully employed, e.g., antisense, siRNA, aptamer, CRISPR, and mRNA, with an increasing number of drug approvals in recent years. 

This course will focus on fundamentals and advances in supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) employing carbon dioxide-based mobile phases. Emphasis will be directed toward pharmaceuticals and will touch on other fields where SFC currently plays or will play a critical role such as lipidomics, specialty chemicals and polymers, biodiesel, foods and vitamins, natural products, and flavors/fragrances.

This short course provides an overview of sample preparation and extraction strategies for LC-amenable analytes across diverse matrices, including environmental, biological, pharmaceutical, and food samples. The focus will be on selecting appropriate workflows to isolate, enrich, and clean up targeted compounds, particularly non-volatile organics, polar and ionic species and small biomolecules.

This 3-hour course reviews best practices, shortcuts, and tricks of the trade to help pharmaceutical and other scientists become more successful in developing effective HPLC or UHPLC methods (on potency and ICH-compliant stability-indicating assays of pharmaceuticals) using the traditional selectivity-tuning, three-pronged method template, and universal generic gradient method approaches.

This course will cover the fundamentals and select applications of size-exclusion chromatography (SEC), hydrodynamic chromatography (HDC), and flow field-flow fractionation (flow FFF) methods including asymmetrical flow FFF (AF4) and hollow-fiber flow FFF (HF5). The true power of these methods comes from their coupling to a multiplicity of physical and chemical detection methods, including but not limited to static and dynamic light scattering, viscometry, refractometry, fluorescence, UV/vis, NMR, MS, etc.

What will be taught? 1) Short basics of stereochemistry and separation of enantiomers; 2) Comparative characteristics of gas chromatography (GC), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), super/sub-critical fluid chromatography (SFC), capillary electrophoresis (CE) and capillary electrochromatography (CEC) from the viewpoint of chiral separations and enantioselective analysis; 3) Non-covalent interactions and the importance of their control for preparation and use of chiral stationary phases and chiral selectors; 4) Currently available chiral columns and chiral selectors for practical problem solving and their comparative characteristics; 5) Some unusual effects in chiral separations; 6) Understanding enantioselective recognition and chiral separations (kinetics, thermodynamics, molecular modeling).

This 3-hour introductory course overviews the pharmaceutical industry, the new drug development process, and drug quality fundamentals, including concepts, regulations, public standards, and best practices in nonclinical development and manufacturing for quality assurance.  You will learn the roles of quality control (QC) and chemistry, manufacturing, and control (CMC) drug development process in ensuring drug products' safety, efficacy, and quality.  It covers industry-standard processes, including SOPs, quality systems, method qualification/validation, release testing, specifications, and certificates of analysis (COAs).  

Protein biopharmaceuticals are macromolecules with a therapeutic effect, which are now increasingly used for the treatment of various diseases including cancer, diabetes, infection, inflammatory, and autoimmune disorders. Protein biopharmaceuticals have a complexity far exceeding that of small molecule drugs. However, to fully benefit from these sophisticated therapies, it is essential to ensure that their quality is consistently high. In this context, advanced analytical techniques are indispensable to ensure batch-to-batch reproducibility, long-term stability under various storage conditions, and the precise detection and quantification of impurities, contaminants and degradation products.

Hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) is uniquely suited to separate polar compounds of biomedical, environmental and pharmaceutical importance. As a mode of liquid chromatography, HILIC differs fundamentally from the more widely employed reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) both in its underlying retention mechanisms and in its practical implementation. This short course is designed for both graduate students and industrial scientists who seek a solid foundation in HILIC.

This course is designed for scientists who already have some hands-on experience with HPLC. General courses typically focus on general chromatographic theory, reversed phase LC separations, and the basics of HPLC instrumentation and data interpretation. In this half-day tutorial, other separation modes (including HILIC, ion-exchange chromatography, and size-exclusion chromatography) and other types of detectors (including "universal" detection modes and mass spectrometry) will be discussed. Additionally, in-depth details on instrument design and strategies for method development in a broad array of application areas will be provided.