We are happily back from IMSC in Toronto and a very important celebration in our group has occurred! On the last day of August two PhD theses were defended in our group by Asko Laaniste and Hanno Evard.
Asko wrote his thesis on ionization sources. Specifically focusing on the comparison of different sources for pesticides. The main conclusion of his work is, that conventional electrospray ionization (ESI) is better than generally expected. Additionally Asko studied the possibilities of 3R nebulizer developed in our lab for ESI source. As an opponent Prof. Risto Kostiainen from University of Helsinki served.
Hanno on the other hand solved a very crucial question of LoD determination. It has been often bothering our lab that the methodology used for LoD determination in various papers can not be clearly understood. So Hanno compared all common methods used to determine LoD and observed that the approach using calibration function residuals to estimate the noise of the method (suggested by International Conference of Harmonization, ICH) gives results closest to the VIM (Vocabulário Internacional de Metrologia) definition. The opponent in the defense was Dr Emilia Vasileva-Veleva from Marine Environmental Studies Laboratory, International Atomic Energy Agency, Monaco.
Both theses can be accessed from here:
Asko Laaniste, Comparison and optimisation of novel mass spectrometry ionisation sources
Hanno Evard, Estimating limit of detection for mass spectrometric analysis methods
 |
| Asko and Hanno celebrating the defence. |
 |
| Happy supervisor with a defence gift. |