Welcome to the website of the Chemometrics & Advanced Separations Team (CAST) of Bob Pirok, Andrea Gargano, and Tijmen Bos, with researchers from the University of Amsterdam and VU University Amsterdam. The team comprises enthusiastic researchers from both universities who devote a bit of their time to developing guides and tools for use by the community. Here, you will be able to find useful, information, software and tools for use in mass spectrometry and (multi-dimensional) chromatography.
CAST scientist Luca Tutiš together with Govert Somsen and Andrea Gargano as well as AstraZeneca, Novartis and GSK have just published a manuscript describing a novel LC-MS method for impurity profiling of therapeutic phosphorothioated oligonucleotides.
Researchers Rick van den Hurk, Dr. Tijmen Bos, and Dr. Bob Pirok have, together with scientists Dr. Ynze Mengerink (Brightlands Chemelot Campus) and Prof. Dr.
CAST scientists Annika van der Zon and Ziran Zhai have just published two manuscriptsshowcasing significant advances in the low flow analysis of intact antibodies and
Scientists from the CAST team and related projects within the Center of Analytical Science Amsterdam actively participated with lectures, posters and social contributions to the HPLC2025 conference in Brugge, Belgium.
The book Analytical Separation Science by Pirok and Schoenmakers was officially launched at the renowned HPLC2025 conference.
CAST researchers Dr. Tijmen Bos and Dr. Bob Pirok gave a short course on AI in chromatography at HPLC2025 in Bruges, Belgium
You can download some of our developed software and tools here. The overview is not exhaustive. We have only recently begun with making our work accessible. Currently a manual only exists for the FILTER tool. More apps, manuals and information repositories will be added through September and October.
Visit the special page on the public-privately funded PARADISE project. The project aims to resolve pressing matters in industry and society using 2D-LC. The project is funded by a consortium of Covestro, DSM, Genentech, NFI, Shell and the Dutch Research Council (NWO).
We maintain a searchable database containing all 2D-LC methods published since the 1978 paper by Erni and Frei. The database, which contains over 550 methods, is part of a collaboration between the University of Amsterdam (Pirok) and Gustavus Adolphus College (Stoll).
A novel algorithm enables accurate reconstruction of copolymer block-length distributions (BLDs) from fragment data, advancing polymer characterization.
New manuscript published size-exclusion chromatography hyphenated with mass spectrometry and ultraviolet (SEC-MS/UV) method to characterize poly lactide-co-glycolide (PLGA), and the use of enzymes for polyester polymer degradation.
Annika van der Zon introduced a near-native separation method for characterizing charge variants of intact monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) using capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) coupled with mass spectrometry (MS).