Security Awareness for End-Users, Certification for Organization

Sample preparation is the most important, yet often most neglected area of chromatographic training and method development. The world's finest gas and liquid chromatographs generally cannot overcome mistakes made prior to sample injection.

This webinar will focus on general principles of sampling and sample preparation for chromatography and an overview of key concepts for several major sample preparation techniques, including:

* Liquid-liquid and liquid-solid extractions (LLE and LSE)
* Static headspace extraction (SHE)
* Solid phase extraction (SPE)
* Sorptive micro-extractions (SPME and SBSE).

Discussion will directed toward seeing the commonalities among all extraction techniques and toward choosing the best technique for a given analytical problem. Fundamentals of sample and glassware handling will also be reviewed.

This webinar is directed toward analysts who use these techniques hands-on every day and to the laboratory managers who must teach, train and supervise them.

This webinar will consist of 2 parts:

1. Answers to your questions asked in Professor Schoenmakers' Introduction to Liquid Chromatography webinar.

2. An interactive Q&A session for Dr Polite's "Resolution in Liquid Chromatography" video tutorial.

Chromedia, for a limited time only, will provide Dr Lee Polite's video tutorial Resolution in LC available completely for free!

In this webinar, Professor Peter Schoenmakers will provide insight into the various LC techniques, including:

* An overall perspective of current usage and applications of the various techniques.
* A description of how the techniques developed, starting from paper chromatography up-to current "high tech" two-dimensional separations.
* A more detailed focus on the concept of various methods.

Often portrayed more as magic than science, popular television series such as CSI have aroused great interest in analytical chemistry. Forensic science relies on separation science.

Peter Schoenmakers' webinar will also, in a light-hearted manner, put LC methods into the correct perspective for forensic science.

The first activity in the Year of Education is a series of free educational webinars, run in conjunction by separationsNOW and Chromedia. In the first webinar, Professor Harold McNair gives an interactive lecture on the basics of gas chromatography.

This first webinar is intended for persons who:

* Use chromatography and would like to revisit the basics of GC.
* Have a little knowledge and would like to learn more!

Some knowledge of general and organic chemistry is assumed. The webinar should prove useful to technicians, students, graduate students, PhDs and even professors planning to work with GC.

Topics to be discussed are:

* Definitions of GC
* Separation principles
* Advantages and limitations of GC
* Basic instrumental components of a GC
* Capillary columns
* Three detectors: FID,TCD and ECD

The serology-based methods routinely used in forensic casework for the identification of biological fluids have varying and often limited degrees of sensitivity and specificity. A novel strategy for the identification of the body fluid origin of dried forensic biological material (blood, semen, saliva, vaginal secretions and menstrual blood) involves expression profiling of body fluid specific messenger and small RNAs (mRNA and miRNA). RNA analysis may permit not only a molecular-based approach with a greater specificity than that of conventional methodologies for the identification of forensically relevant biological fluids, but may also provide strategies particularly suited for the analysis of environmentally impacted or degraded samples frequently encountered in forensic casework. This presentation will describe highly specific RNA methods for body fluid identification that exhibit promise for forensic casework analysis.

The analysis of regular STR DNA has become the “gold standard” of identification in forensic casework. There are numerous cases though where biological evidence exists but regular DNA testing can’t provide probative evidence or insufficient nuclear DNA was obtained. This presentation will describe casework scenarios where miniSTR, Y-STR and/or mtDNA can provide probative evidence.

In February 2009, the National Research Council of the National Academies released its report entitled Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward. The substantive findings underscore that many traditional forensic disciplines are in scientific crisis, having never been the subject of rigorous validation. This presentation outlines the major findings of the Report, and the impact it will have on the roles of prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges in the rapidly evolving scientific/legal landscape.

This program will explore information and research resources in forensic science, focusing primarily on the resources available from the National Clearinghouse for Science, Technology and the Law at Stetson University College of Law. It will demonstrate features of ncstl.org, such as the free research database, Cold Case Toolkit, Education Center, and other online resources designed to keep you updated with the latest scientific evidence information.

This presentation will provide an introduction to NecroSearch International, a non-profit, multi-disciplinary organization dedicated to the location of clandestine graves and evidence. A brief history of NecroSearch will be presented along with a description of the organization's mission (research, training, and investigation) and case acceptance protocol. Several of the organization's expertise categories will be discussed along with a description of NecroSearch's investigative process. The presentation will conclude with a case example.

Generic Microfluidic Platform for Ultrafast Forensic DNA Analysis