Page 7 - Shimadzu Journal vol.9 Issue1

“Cooperations always are based on trust and on personal relations” | INSIGHT from CUSTOMER

Prof. Uwe Karst analysis to detect and quantify the individual platinum species formed in body fluids and tissues, while imaging by LA­

ICP­MS provides quantitative distribution information on platinum in human or animal tissues.

Figure 1. Elemental distribution of P, Zn, Gd and Fe obtained via LA­ICP­MS analysis as well as microscopic
image (left) of a sheep kidney sample after treatment of the animal with gadodiamide.

Could you describe the research you have done at
the European Innovation Center with Shimadzu?

We are collaborating with the EuIC on Imaging since more than
three years, and one major topic at this moment is the further
improvement of the combination between liquid chromatography
and ICP­MS for speciation analysis as well as laser ablation and
ICP­MS for chemical imaging purposes. As in other previous and
current cooperations with various instrument manufacturers, we
see our role not only in developing applications, but also in con­
tributing to the further development of the actual and future in­
strument generations, including suggestions for improved
hardware, software for instrument control, data evaluation and
integration of the instrument´s data with data of other imaging
methods. Within our current project, the focus is directed on LC­
ICP­MS as well as LA­ICP­MS and its combination with MALDI­MS
and MALDI­MS/MS, as many of our current analytical challenges
require the combined use of complementary imaging techniques.

Could you share Shimadzu’s strengths?

As stated above, combined imaging techniques are particularly
intriguing. Therefore, cooperations with manufacturers who are
active in several fields of chemical imaging are particular attractive Figure 2. Heatmap of the spatial distribution of 24Mg,
39K and 44Ca in a whole leaf of an Arabidopsis halleri
to us (and hopefully for the manufacturers as well). While we have plant recorded by LA­ICP­MS.
been using chromatography (LC, GC) and spectroscopy (UV/vis,
fluorescence, AAS) instrumentation from Shimadzu since more
than 20 years for research and education, our cooperation in the
imaging field was established five years ago, and is currently

Shimadzu Journal vol.9 Issue1 6