Advanced Analytical Methods for Pharmaceutical and Diagnostic Applications

Abstract

Driving forces for the development of novel analytical technologies in the life-science industry are described. Technologies which either were developed in Bio-Analytical Research or brought to a reliability required for routine applications will be elucidated and, on the basis of practical examples, the impact of modern analytical technologies on the industrial research and development will be discussed: Optical biosensors based on evanescent excitation of luminescence allow for real-time monitoring of the binding of active compounds to specific biomolecular recognition sites. Molecular imaging technologies have the potential to gain rapid access to physical maps of genomic materials. Capillary electrophoresis or affinity gel electrophoresis are well suited for the fast determination of oligonucleotide mixtures in nl amounts of samples. Integrated capillary electrophoresis on chips will allow to multiplex capillary systems at low costs and results in high separation efficiencies. MALDI-TOF MS is an easy to operate non-scanning mass spectrometric instrumentation for the analysis of high molecular weight biopolymers such as immunoglobulins.