HPLC and Mass Spectrometry

The Bauer Core has established a Mass Spectrometry and HPLC facility for the investigators in the Harvard research community.

Mass spectrometry is an analytical technique to identify unknown compounds and to elucidate the structure properties of molecules. Typical applications include identification and quantitation of compounds within complex organic mixtures, detection and identification of bimolecular structures such as carbohydrates and nucleic acids, and sequencing biopolymers such as proteins and oligosaccharides.

High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) is used to separate, purifiy, and quantify unknown compounds. HPLC is the most popular and versatile analytical technique in laboratories today and has wide applications in such diverse industries as biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and drug discovery, food and beverages, forensics, petrochemical, and so on.

Preparative HPLC refers to the high throughput process of isolation and purification of target compounds in large scale, while Analytical HPLC mainly focus on the information about the target compound, such as quantification and resolution of target compounds.