Practical Course Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Boland

Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry – Basics & Applications - Fully booked!
August, 24^th - 25^th, 2010 I by Wilhelm Boland and Stefan Bartram, MPI for Chemical Ecology

Organizer: Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Boland and Dr. Stefan Bartram

Max. number of participants: 6

Theme of the workshop:
Invented 70 years ago Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS) was for a long time a domain of the Earth Sciences but since the introduction of commercially available instruments in the 1990s it finds increasingly widespread use in the areas of medicine, biology, biochemistry, food control, and forensic science.

The highly precise analysis of isotopic ratios with precision 4-5 magnitudes higher than in conventional „organic” mass spectrometers requires the conversion of the element under investigation in the separated compound or of a bulk sample to a sample gas preserving the original isotopic composition.

The workshop is divided in seminars on the basic principles of IRMS, effects of isotopic discrimination and selected applications for the theoretical background and a hands-on part with sample preparations and measurements on an elemental analyzer/ gas chromatograph (EA/GC)-continuous flow-IRMS combination.

Topics:

• Stable isotopes and isotopic discrimination
• Biosynthetic pathway elucidation
• Food chain analysis
• Authenticity control & food adulteration
• Doping control & forensic science
• Sample collection and preparation for analyses by IRMS
• Standard applications in EA-IRMS and GC-C-IRMS

Location: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, - Beutenberg Campus - Hans-Knöll-Str. 8, 07745 Jena

Meeting point: August 24^th, 10:00 a.m. at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, seminar room library

Students only need a basic background in physics and chemistry