Bioanalysis

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The Bioanalysis deals with the analytical methods of the life sciences: biochemistry , molecular biology , molecular genetics , cell and developmental biology and medicine .

In a narrower sense, bioanalysis examines biological macromolecules and their changes, i.e. proteins , DNA , RNA , carbohydrates and lipids . In a broader sense, low-molecular substrates and products of the metabolism of biological systems are also included.

In bioanalytics, devices are used as “tools” that convert physico-chemical values ​​with suitable sensors or biosensors into electrical signals, which can then be recorded and registered qualitatively and quantitatively by the experimenter. The data registered can be very complex and are analyzed using bioinformatics .

In addition to conventional high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with UV or fluorescence detectors, the combination with a mass spectrometer (MS) is increasingly being used. The HPLC-MS / MS combination (serial “tandem”) sometimes enables the selective detection of substance concentrations (for example in blood plasma ) down to the range of pg per ml.

Physical separation processes, as presented, for example, for the preparative processing of organic products, are mostly used to isolate the desired organic product from the bulk of the accompanying substances in order to enable the qualitative and quantitative determination of the organic product with the least possible error. Often the bioproduct has to be changed through a chemical modification with or without biocatalysis in such a way that a detection or separation becomes possible. In any case, bioanalysis is more complex in most cases in terms of accuracy and reproducibility than classical physico-chemical analysis due to its higher complexity.

Pharmaceutical Industry

In pharmaceutical research , active ingredients (future drugs ), metabolites and antibodies in body fluids and tissue are quantified using bioanalysis in order to determine the LADME parameters that are important for pharmacokinetics . The results from bioanalysis are also used to determine the toxicokinetics . This work is generally carried out under the ' Good Laboratory Practice ' (GLP) quality assurance system and is therefore subject to strict legal regulations.

For sample management and tracking i. A. uses a laboratory information and management system (LIMS) that must be fully qualified for studies that are subject to GLP .

Education

The bioanalytics course includes general scientific fundamentals as well as advanced subjects such as biochemistry, micro- and molecular biology, immunology and various analytical-related topics. Bioanalytics can be studied at two universities in Germany, the Coburg University and the Albstadt-Sigmaringen University . At the Albstadt-Sigmaringen University of Applied Sciences, the bioanalytics course is linked to a focus on laboratory automation .

In Austria, the Joanneum University of Applied Sciences in Graz and the FH Campus Wien offer a corresponding course of study.

Numerous other universities and colleges offer the opportunity to specialize in bioanalytics in higher semesters as part of basic studies such as chemistry, biochemistry and biology.

literature

  • Hermann Mascher: Clinical analysis with HPLC. Wiley-VCH, Weinheim 2010, ISBN 978-3-527-32751-5 .
  • Friedrich Lottspeich, Joachim W. Engels (Ed.): Bioanalytik . 2nd edition, Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg 2006, ISBN 978-3827415202 .