Column switching, automation of SPE-based sample conditioning, and post-column derivatization are forms of fluidic automation familiar to many analytical chemists. Automation of SPE sample cleanup has been employed extensively when large numbers of samples must be processed, such as in the analysis of pesticides in foods and, more recently, has facilitated adoption of modern methodology for paralytic shellfish toxins (PST’s) in UK shellfish monitoring. Similarly, post-column derivatization has long been a mainstay in the study of the PST’s and will soon form the basis for a new official method for shellfish toxin control. These approaches will be covered in our external workshop on LC detection of PST’s.

Sequential Injection Analysis

At the Annual Meeting, we will also offer laboratory sessions on another form of fluidic automation that is a less familiar but very capable technology. Sequential injection analysis (SIA) is a very high throughput analytical tool that is well suited to miniaturization. SIA is a microfluidic approach to automating chemistries that has been employed extensively in the development of unattended monitoring systems such as in process control and environmental monitoring. It is the successor to flow injection analysis (FIA) and one of our keynote speakers, Jaromir Ruzicka, is a co-inventor of both of these approaches to automating chemistries. In our laboratory workshop we will show that SIA is also well suited to the development of assays using expensive reagents such as enzymes, and is a green approach, in that very little waste is generated. SIA systems also have a small footprint, and could easily be mounted in portable enclosures. More information is available at www.flowinjection.com
SIA will be demonstrated for the microfluidic automation of an enzymatic assay for histamine and the high speed analysis of other targets. Admission to the SIA laboratory workshop is included in the registration fee for the Annual Meeting.

Instructor Hugo Oliveira

Hugo Oliveira obtained his degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences at University of Porto (Portugal) in 2003. This included a final training period in Analytical Chemistry area as student of the “Erasmus” exchange program (2003). He worked in the development of optical sensors under supervision of Dr. Julian Alonso at the Sensors and Biosensors Group of Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain). In the same year he began the European Master Course in Environmental Analytical Chemistry at the University of Porto in collaboration with the University of Aberdeen (United Kingdom). During the case-study module of this master, he was integrated in the Air Quality Survey project at Aberdeen Harbour managed by Dr. Iain Marr, participating in the development and application of analytical methodologies for atmospheric pollutants analysis. In January of 2005 received his Master in Environmental Analytical Chemistry after a research project dealing with automatic flow based method for the determination of phenolic compounds in water samples, carried out at the University of Porto. During 2005 he worked as a teacher in technical training courses in Analytical Chemistry and obtained a PhD grant from Portuguese Science Foundation. Since 2006 he has been working at his PhD program centered in the development of new environmentally friendly automatic methodologies for sample preparation coupled to liquid chromatography (LC), supervised by Prof. Marcela Segundo and Prof. José Luís Costa Lima. During this period he visited the University of Balearic Islands (Spain) and worked with Prof. Manuel Mirò and Prof. Victor Cerdà. As result of this collaboration, new strategies for automatic sample preconcentration and cleanup hyphenated with LC applied to environmental and foodstuff samples were recently published.

His present research interests are focused in the development of new automation strategies for renewable solid-phase extraction and chemical assays based on microfluidic systems. Hugo is currently a visitor of the Department of Oceanography of the University of Hawai’i at Mañoa, working in collaboration with Prof. Jaromir Ruzicka and Prof. Christopher Measures in the development of new microfluidic based methods for the determination of trace metals in seawater.