USP student award goes to heparin analysis project

The US Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) has granted one of its six graduate student fellowship awards for 2009-10 to a researcher working on ways to improve analysis of heparin.

John Limitiaco, of the University of California, Riverside, is looking at new ways to characterise pharmaceutical heparin using simple high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and capillary electrophoresis (CE) methods.

The aim is to develop techniques that can easily be implemented in quality assurance laboratories using ultraviolet and/or refractive index detection.

In 2007-2008, hundreds of Americans and citizens around the world died as the result of heparin intentionally adulterated with oversulfated chondroitin sulfate (OSCS).

Limitiaco will also work on establishing alternative methods for heparin analysis, based on techniques such as hyphenated liquid chromatography with nuclear magnetic resonance (LC-NMR) and capillary isotachopheresis with NMR spectroscopy (cITP-NMR).

The overall onjective is to "enhance the arsenal of techniques available for the rapid identification of new natural or intentional contaminants that may be introduced into the heparin supply chain in the future," according to the USP.

Under the USP scheme each graduate student is awarded a $25,000, a portion of which is used to help support the fellow and research costs.

New USP quality standards for heparin designed to prevent a recurrence of the adverse reactions and deaths caused by adulterated supplies were introduced on October 1.


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