Then: 2009
I’ve worked in several fields over the years, first as a professor, then in the petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries – and even the United States Equestrian Federation. During that time I’ve used many different analytical platforms from most of the major manufacturers. In particular, I have extensive experience in mass spectrometry and know what I need (and want) in a system – and what I don’t. One bugbear of mine has always been the cleaning of the ion transfer tube. It typically used to take several hours and resulted in the instrument being down for most of a day. I’d rather not think too much about the time wasted on this menial task! Looking back, down time in general has plagued certain MS systems, which is a significant inconvenience – especially in routine environments where meeting deadlines is key.In 2014, I joined Microbac Laboratories, which runs one of the world’s most diversified commercial laboratory networks, serving a client base of thousands. Essentially, we’re responsible for delivering information that businesses need to survive, so dependable results are a cornerstone of our company. Just after I joined, we experienced a significant expansion to the business and needed to increase our LC-MS capability for a range of analyses – including routine pesticide screening – and started looking for the best solutions available. The big challenge in pesticide residue analysis is setting up a good, robust method, which includes setting up the right transitions for all the compounds to minimize interferences. We wanted a system that we could get up and running as soon as possible – preferably a total solution.