Claus Cornett
Lektor
E-mail: clco(at)farma.ku.dk  
Telefon: 35 33 62 66
Rum: 13/639

Metabonomics
Development of new analytical techniques that enables faster and more reliable diagnosis of diseases are badly needed, especially in the light of a more personalized approach to medication in the future. Traditional methods often employ invasive techniques such as endoscopy or scrapings or establishing a clinical score in order to establish the final diagnosis. A relatively novel technique, which uses NMR and/or MS spectrometry, combined with multivariate data analysis promises to make  diagnosis possible without unpleasant and potentially harmful invasive procedures. A typical project would encompass analyzing metabolite profiles for patients suffering from a disease or exposed to a pathogen, identify biomarkers and develop disease models that can be used for diagnosis based on NMR and/or MS spectra.
Supervisor: Claus Cornett
No of students: 1-2

Studies of azide preservation of human urine
Sodium azide is often used to avoid unwanted growth in biological fluids (and HPLC solvents), without much consideration for which reactions can happen (azide is a nucleophile). It has been shown, that urine preserved with azide is readily distinguishable from unpreserved urine or urine preserved with fluoride, when NMR is used as detection method in metabonomics studies. In the project urine will be examined with and without azide-preservation, and some model compounds will be studies under ”urine” like conditions. Reaction products will most likely have to be isolated and structure-elucidated. A secondary purpose of the project could be evaluation of azide derivatisation as a means of shifting signals to less crowded regions of the urine NMR spectrum. Citric Acid is an example of a potential target compound. Methods employed in the project: NMR, HPLC, Solid Phase Extraction.
Supervisor: Claus Cornett
No of students: 1-2

Development of methods for identification and quantitative analysis of pharmaceutical formulations using IR (Infra Red) spectrometry.
Note.! Autumn
IR, including Near Infrared (NIR) spectrometry allows for the development of fast and inexpensive analytical methods suitable for process control, where the sample is measured without sample preparation. Methods based on NIR are often used in pharmaceutical and Food industries for identification and control, and process analysis.
NIR spectra are fairly featureless spectra, where information is extracted from the measured spectra using many wavelengths – multivariate data analysis - chemometrics.
Supervisor: Claus Cornett
No of students: 1-2