EXPERTISE

FIFRA REGISTRATION STUDIES

NCL has been providing services to the environmental and regulatory community for more than 25 years. Over these years, the laboratory has gained a tremendous amount of technical experience with a wide variety of matrices. During this time, the lab has focused on the analysis of difficult and unusual pesticides and herbicides using GC, HPLC, GC/MS and LC/MS/MS instrumentation. NCL first began providing analytical services for FIFRA registration studies in 1987. Since then, the lab has performed more than 140 studies ranging in size from a few samples to more than two thousand samples. List of studies for which NCL has provided analytical services.

Method Development and Method Modification

NCL has extensive experience developing new methods for numerous classes of agricultural chemicals in plant, animal tissue and environmental matrices. Laboratory chemists have also been successful at modifying existing methodology to meet changing regulatory requirements. With the permission of sponsors, NCL has streamlined and simplified older methods so that disposable glassware and smaller volumes of solvents can be used. This strategy has been made possible by the use of more sensitive and specific detection tools such as GC/MS operated in the SIM mode and LC/MS/MS. In many instances the tremendous specificity and sensitivity of API-triple quadrapole LC/MS/MS for detection and quantification has allowed significant simplification of sample preparation procedures. This technological innovation has proven to be especially useful for methods that were formerly so complicated that they could not be completed in the 24 hour time period required for enforcement methods. In addition, the use of LC/MS/MS has often allowed parent and metabolites, which had formerly required separate analyses, to be analyzed together in a single analysis. These advantages often save the sponsor considerable time and cost.