LECO Sponsored Talk with Dr. Flavio Antonio Franchina
Evaluation of sampling conditions for volatile metabolites in exhaled breath combining trap enrichment, dual-stage thermal desorption, comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography, and time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TD-GC×GC-TOFMS)
00:00 Introductions
00:22 Presentation ‘Evaluation of Sampling Conditions for Volatile Metabolites in Exhaled Breath Combining Trap Enrichment, Dual-Stage Thermal Desorption, Comprehensive Two-Dimensional Gas Chromatography, and Time-Of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (TD-GCxGC-TOFMS)
12:38 Q&A
Talk Abstract:
Exhaled breath analysis is suffering from a lack of standardized sampling and analysis procedures, impacting the robustness of inter-laboratory results, and thus hampering proper external validation. The aim of this work was to verify compliance and validate the performance of a comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography – mass spectrometry system (GC×GC-MS) by monitoring probe metabolites in exhaled breath. These probe analytes were selected after the ingestion of coffee or a digestive pill.
The GC×GC-MS system herein used consisted of the following features: I) a quad-jet thermal modulator to ensure the high-sensitivity and high-separation power needed for the analysis of complex biological samples and trace metabolites; II) a time-of-flight MS combining high sensitivity, proper data-point density for the fast modulated peaks and spectral consistency which enables reliable deconvolution; III) an auxiliary pressure joint located downstream of the injector to allow an adequate dry purge of the tubes without affecting columns and detector performance; IV) an online thermal desorption unit, constituted by a fast heating/cooling inlet body and a cold trap, allowing an efficient dual-stage thermal desorption of metabolites from the trap tubes into the GC×GC-MS system.
We measured the VOCs sampling performance of different adsorbent materials for thermal desorption, in the context of clinically relevant samples. Specifically, we used 7 different adsorbents, packed singularly and in combination, on Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS) and human breath spiked with probe analytes. For the comparison, we selected a mix of 19 standards to evaluate the sensitivity and repeatability between the different adsorbents.
Speaker Biography:
Dr. Flavio Antonio Franchina is an Associate Professor in Analytical Chemistry at the Department of Chemical, Pharmaceutical, and Agricultural Sciences of the University of Ferrara, since 2021. His research is devoted to the development and validation of advanced analytical techniques (chromatographic and mass spectrometric) for the evaluation of complex matrices of various origins and within the context of clinical research (breath analysis, pathogens in vitro volatile metabolites, data analysis etc.). Besides the numerous participations at international meetings and papers published in high-impact journals in the field of analytical chemistry, his international experience and scientific merit have been recognized with the John Phillips award for outstanding contributions to the field of multidimensional GC, and his presence in the power list ‘Top 40 Under 40’ in analytical science by The Analytical Scientist, in which he was listed twice, in 2018 and 2022.
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