Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

A high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system is requested to support the programs of six faculty members and their research teams at Dalhousie. The requested configuration incorporates an evaporative light scattering detector (ELSD) which is known as a universal detector because of its ability to detect all molecules regardless of structure or charge. It is particularly appropriate for compounds such as lipids that cannot be detected with the typically configured instruments. The primary application of this HPLC will be in the analysis of lipids, specifically in the characterization and separation of intact lipid structures. Such lipid analysis will support research in a number of areas, including food web elucidation, investigating relationships between physical properties and structure, and identifying alternative fuel sources. It will also be essential in determining a range of bioactives recovered from animal and fish processing waste, including lipid-soluble nutraceuticals, enzymes and collagen. The HPLC system will also be used in the analysis of nutrients to investigate the impact of nutrient stress on survival of bacteria, specifically Listeria sp. Lastly, carbohydrate and hydrocarbon levels in fermentation and bioremediation studies will be determined using this equipment. Thus, the HPLC system requested here will enable significant advancements to be made in the diverse research programs of the six applicants.