Special Issue "Early Career Stars in Bioanalysis/Clinical Analysis"

Dear Colleagues,

“Early Career Stars in Bioanalysis/Clinical Analysis” is a Special Issue aimed at early career researchers in Bioanalysis/Clinical Analysis (students and scholars who are at the undergraduate, graduate, or post-graduate level—up to 10 years post-doctoral degree).

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many early career investigators have faced extra challenges in their uphill battle to establish their careers in science. In order to support such researchers' careers, we built a Special Issue aimed at early career researchers. The Special Issue aims to provide an international platform for exchanging ideas and presenting the latest achievements in the area of separations.

This Special Issue aims to publish original research and review articles on the development and application of bioanalytical methods for qualitative–quantitative determinations in biological matrices (conventional/non-conventional) that require invasive or non-invasive sampling procedures.

Dr. Anusha Jayaraman
Dr. Sheng Cai
Dr. Sonia Sentellas
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Separations is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Early career researcher
• Bioanalysis
• Clinical analysis
• Qualitative–quantitative determination
• New chemical entities

Title: UPLC-MS/MS method for simultaneous determination of 14 antimicrobials in human plasma and cerebrospinal fluid: application to therapeutic drug monitoring

Abstract: Pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics is the foundation for guiding the rational application of antibiotics in clinical practice, so it is necessary to establish quantitative methods for accurate drug concentration detection. This study aimed to develop a rapid and simple ultra high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) method for quantification of 14 antibiotics (amikacin, etimicin, ceftazidime, cefepime, cefoperazone, ceftriaxone, daptomycin, latamoxef, linezolid, meropenem, biapenem, ampicillin, norvancomycin, and vancomycin) in human plasma and cerebrospinal fluid. Chromatographic separation was achieved on a Waters ACQUITY UPLC BEH C18 column (2.1 mm × 50 mm, 1.7 μm) via gradient elution within 3 minutes. And antibiotics were monitored using positive ion fitted with multiple reaction monitoring. The lower limit of quantification is between 0.05 and 2 μg·mL^-1. The analysis was verified according to the FDA bioanalysis method validation guidelines and showed excellent accuracy (from 88.02 to 112.78) and precision (from 0.40 to 9.13). This method was successfully applied to therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) in 22 patients under antibiotics treatment. This study UPLC-MS/MS method was validated for the quantification of 14 antibiotics with different chemical properties in plasma and cerebrospinal fluid, and was suitable for TDM in patients, especially with central system infection.

Keywords: antibiotics, UPLC-MS/MS, therapeutic drug monitoring, cerebrospinal fluid