This invention relates to encapsulated workflow reagents comprising an encapsulating material and a workflow reagent encapsulated within the encapsulating material for sample and workflow preparation prior to chromatographic, spectroscopic or other analytical systems, use thereof, and devices comprising the same.

A liquid chromatographic column includes: a cylindrical column body; an inflow-side filter that is disposed at an eluent inflow-side end of the column body; an outflow-side filter that is disposed at an eluent outflow-side end of the column body; and a filler that is filled between the inflow-side filter and the outflow-side filter, in which the inflow-side filter has a two-layer structure consisting of a first resin filter member and a second resin filter member which are disposed in this order from a side of the filler, and the first resin filter member has an indentation elastic modulus lower than that of the second resin filter member.

A system and method for determining concentration of a constituent of a sample fluid includes a flow cell with a light source emitting incident light to a proximal end thereof. Media disposed within the flow cell supports nanostructures that are substantially transparent in at least a portion of the incident light spectrum. The nanostructures adsorb or absorb the constituent to attain a concentration that is a multiple of the concentration of the constituent in the sample fluid. A sensor detects transmitted light exiting from the media, and generates outputs corresponding to a spectrum of the transmitted light. A processor captures the sensor outputs and compares the incident light spectrum to the transmitted light spectrum to generate an absorbance spectrum. The absorbance spectrum is used to calculate the concentration in the nanostructures, which is then used with the predetermined multiple to calculate the sample concentration.

A repeatable method for detecting circulating tumor cells in vitro is provided. The method involves combining a test sample from a patient suspected of having circulating tumor cells, and a non-lytic adenoviral system, and culture media for the cells. The adenoviral system utilizes (i) a first replication-defective adenoviral particle in which an expression cassette is packaged, said expression cassette comprising an adenoviral 5 and 3 ITRs and a tumor-specific promoter; and (ii) a coding sequence for a reporter protein which is expressed in the presence of circulating tumor cells, and an adenoviral 3 ITR. The test sample and the non-lytic adenoviral system are incubated for a sufficient time to permit expression of the reporter protein, and measuring reporter protein expression in the test samples, whereby presence of reporter expression indicates the presence of circulating tumor cells in the sample. Because the system is non-lytic, the testing can be repeated on the cells which remain viable in culture. Also provided is a method for enriching test samples having circulating tumor cells and a microfluidics device suitable for CTC-specification identification and enumeration.

A chromatography column (2) containing a bed of packed particles (22, 24, 26, 28, 30), wherein the packed particles comprise fused core particles and the particle diameters of the packed particles vary along the column. Preferably, the particles (2, 24, 26, 28, 30) are arranged according to their average particle diameter, in order of increasing average particle diameter from the inlet end (4) to the outlet end (6). The bed may comprise a plurality of bed sections and each bed section has an average particle diameter calculated from the particles in that section and there are at least two different average particle diameter bed sections, wherein the particles of each bed are separated from particles of an adjacent bed by a partition that is liquid permeable to allow through a flow of mobile phase. A high column efficiency can be provided with lower pressure drop per unit length of the column.

The present disclosure discusses a method of separating a sample of tyrosine kinase inhibitors or metabolites of tyrosine kinase inhibitors which includes injecting the sample into the chromatographic system having one or more low-bind coated surfaces along the flow path; flowing the sample through the chromatographic system; separating the sample; and analyzing the separated sample. Consequently, the sample does not bind to the low-binding surface coatings (e.g., alkylsilyl coatings) of the flow path. The applied coating can reduce peak tailing and decrease carryover for tyrosine kinase inhibitor samples during chromatographic analysis.

This invention relates to encapsulated reagents for sample and workflow preparation prior to chromatographic, spectroscopic or other analytical systems, use thereof, and devices comprising the same.

A method for enhanced mud gas logging includes receiving a gas stream; separating the gas stream into a first gas stream, a second gas stream, and a third gas stream; directing the first gas stream to a gas chromatography configuration including a gas chromatography column and a photoionization detector; detecting, by the photoionization detector, gas species in the first gas stream; separating, by a first separation component, water vapor from the second gas stream to produce a processed second gas stream; detecting, by a first mass spectrometer, gas species in the processed second gas stream; separating, by a second separation component, water vapor and other gas species from the third gas stream to produce a processed third gas stream; and detecting, by a second mass spectrometer, gas species in the processed third gas stream.