Martin Gilar
Research Fellow, Separations R&D, Waters Corporation, USA
Main research aims? I am fortunate to participate in research of LC instruments, columns, and analytical techniques at Waters. I enjoy developing the methods for analysis of biomolecules such as peptides and oligonucleotides.
An exciting instrumental innovation… For me the most exciting recent improvement was the introduction of MaxPeak High Performance Surfaces (HPS) Technology. HPS is the modification of metal surfaces of LC hardware with hybrid-silica chemistry. It minimizes the interactions of analytes with metal-oxide surfaces in columns and LC hardware, which reduces the non-specific adsorption, peak tailing, and carryover for certain classes of analytes, such as acidic molecules, nucleic acids, and peptides. The improvements I observed with oligonucleotides were remarkable. We published our results in several papers, but the benefits of HPS technology are still not widely known to analysts around the world.
Spending a $1 Billion research grant… As an aspiring SF writer, I am curious about extraterrestrial life. I don’t mean “ET phone home” or little green men, but the origins of life. With a $1 billion research grant, I could apply the proteomic and genomic methods to study the most primitive forms of bacteria, their molecular machinery, and metabolism. The results will be handy in future when we discover (microbial) life on Mars, Jupiter’s moon Europa (I bet life is everywhere). Once we understand the basics, we can advance human life and health on Earth. Sure, the discovery of life in other places would throw a monkey wrench into the human space exploration/colonization programs, but hey, nothing is for free.
