2021

Previous use of electromembrane extraction (EME) show promising results when pharmaceuticals are extracted from blood and urine samples. As EME offers advantages to traditional sample preparation, the technique has potential for routine bioanalytical measurements in the future. However, all current EME data are generated with laboratory-made equipment, as no standardized device is available. If EME is to be implemented in a routine setting, a commercially available EME device is required. In a recent paper, we tested a prototype for such device at a clinical laboratory. The device was used to extract psychoactive drugs from serum, and the developed EME-UHPLC-MS/MS method was fully validated and compared to the well-established routine method at the Department of Clinical Pharmacology at St. Olav’s University Hospital (Trondheim, Norway).

Read more about EME taking the step into clinical laboratories…

Polar or water-soluble substances are abundantly present in the human body as both drug metabolites and endogenous metabolites. To extract the few we are interested in, from biological samples, is however a challenging task with most techniques, leaving us with limited options for analyzing these substances. In this overview article, we take the temperature on current efforts to apply electromembrane extraction (EME) for efficient and selective extraction of polar compounds.

Check out the paper to see how far we have come, and where we are going…

On September 1^st, Frederik André Hansen successfully defended his PhD thesis “Electromembrane extraction of polar pharmaceutical bases and endogenous metabolites". Congratulations!

In the latest paper from our long-continued collaboration with the research group of Professor Mariá Ramos-Paýan at the University of Seville (Spain), we have developed green technology on a very small scale for the extraction of drugs from urine.

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We were asked to write a personal opinion on quality papers in sample preparation – this is high risk, but hopefully valuable for scientists in the field.

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Electromembrane extraction (EME) has been a prime focus in our research activities for many years, but our understanding of the fundamental principles has been limited. In a couple of recent papers, we have studied the molecular interactions involved in the extraction of endogenous metabolites and peptides in more detail. From this, we have developed deeper insights essential to driving the development of a new generation of more stable and efficient artificial liquid membranes for EME. 

Read the paper by Hansen FA et al.

Read the paper by Rye TK et al. 

The extraction of pharmaceuticals from tissue is highly important in the development of new drugs. In recent work, in collaboration with scientists from the Czech Republic, we demonstrate that such extractions are feasible with electromembrane extraction, with superior performance holding up to the standard of current methodology.

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For long time, we have been collaborating with Professors Chuixiu Huang and Xiantao Shen at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan (China). This collaboration is very important, and it increases the awareness and interest for electromembrane extraction (EME) and liquid-phase microextraction (LPME) in China. Our latest collaborative papers focus on extraction under ultrasound conditions, and on purification of samples prior to polymerase chain reaction.

Read the latest paper...

Read the first paper...

Congratulations Torstein Kige Rye for taking the prize for the best poster in the General-Young category at this year’s all-digital European Sample Preparation Conference (2021). His poster, titled “Electromembrane Extraction of Peptides using Deep Eutectic Solvents as Liquid Membrane”, presented his and colleagues' fundamental research on the extraction of polar peptides. Sample preparation of peptides has previously been challenging with well-established methods, but electromembrane extraction with deep eutectic solvents shows promising results. More details of his work are available in a recent publication by Torstein and other colleagues from our research group.      

We are happy to announce that Shima Tirandaz and Kim Tu Thi Tran successfully defended their master theses on August 17, 2021. We wish them all the best with their future endeavors.

Click on the article to read about their work.

Next generation analytical chemist will be highly concerned about sustainability and use only green methods in their work. How green can they be?

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Analytical measurements from micro-physiological systems have to be done very carefully, in order not to disturb the biochemical equilibrium in the system – this can be done using electromembrane extraction.

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Peptides are charged substances - do they migrate across an oil membrane under influence of an electrical field? Can this principle be used in analytical chemistry?

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On April 8, Gordana Martinovic defended her master thesis entitled “Electromembrane extraction of peptides using deep eutectic solvents as liquid membranes”. As the title implies, this work investigated the potential for using deep eutectic solvents (DES) as liquid membranes in electromembrane extraction (EME) of peptides. The project was inspired by a recent publication from our research group, where DES were successfully used as liquid membranes in EME of polar basic drugs. The present work has identified both cation-π interactions (between the DES components and cationic peptides) as well as ionic interactions (between the ionic carrier di(2-ethylhexyl)phosphate and cationic peptides) important for extraction. The results are important for future EME, and especially for development of selective EME of peptides (and potentially proteins), which will be of high priority in our future EME research.

Extraction of very polar and water-soluble compounds is a great challenge, because they tend to stay in the aqueous sample for solubility reasons. Although extraction is supported by an electrical field in electromembrane extraction (EME), polar substances are difficult even with EME. Our job is to address such challenges, and therefore we are currently developing EME for very polar endogenous metabolites and pharmaceuticals. One example is streptomycin, an antibiotic drug. Recently, we extracted this compound successfully with EME, and as far as we know, this is the most polar substance ever extracted with EME!

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Development of new applications of electromembrane extraction (EME) is highly important for the implementation of the technique. However, understanding the fundamentals is equally important; to give the concept a scientific anchor and to develop predictability. In two recent papers, we studied in more details molecular interactions and acid-base equilibria during EME. If you look into these papers, you will see that new fundamental understanding was developed directly from concepts and tools from the first chemistry course…

Read the first paper...

Read the second paper...

Foreign PhD students often visit our laboratory for a couple of months to get experience with EME/LPME and to conduct common research. Hana Bavlovic Piskackova from Charles University visited us just before COVID, did some experiments in Oslo, brought with her 96-well EME plates back to Czech Republic, and finished work with anthracyclines…

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The Norwegian company Extraction Technologies Norway (www.etn-eme.com) has developed commercial equipment for EME, and we were the first to test this. A unique product based on vials of conducting polymer…

Liquid-phase microextraction (LPME) has been around for 20 years, but still there is no use in routine laboratories. To pass that door, we need to improve the applications published in the scientific literature; use state-of-the-art instrumentation and address the hot applications…

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Detergents (soap) present in samples is a challenge in analytical chemistry, because they tend to interfere with measurements based on mass spectrometry. Most detergents are charged molecules, and therefore we tested electromembrane extraction for their fast and efficient removal…

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