My research interests involve the development of instrumentation and methods to monitor biological processes in tissue cultures in real-time. The instrument incorporates a cell incubation device with a cryofocusing inlet suitable for use with high-speed gas chromatography (GC). High-speed GC is capable of separating complex mixtures in one-tenth the time of conventional GC, on the order of seconds rather than minutes. These short analysis times make real-time monitoring of biological systems possible. The focus is on the detection and quantitation of the products of lipid peroxidation in model systems and tissue cultures. These products include alkanes, n-alkanals, alk-2-en-als, and 4-hydroxyalkenals. Direct monitoring is accomplished by focusing and concentrating gaseous products in the headspace of tissue cultures for injection into a time of flight (TOF) mass spectrometer. The high scanning rates of TOF instruments are compatible with high-speed GC, and the second dimension of data facilitates positive identification of analytes. This is a decided advantage for complex and dynamic biological systems.
