Patrick Parsons, Director of the Division of Environmental Health Sciences at the Wadsworth Center, participated in a series of on-camera interviews with Spectroscopy, a technical publication that covers advances in spectroscopic techniques used in analytical chemistry laboratories. Dr. Parsons is Principal Investigator on grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, supporting analytical research in his laboratory using advanced spectroscopic techniques, including Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry and X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry.
The first of four interview segments focused on Dr. Parsons’ invited lecture at the Winter Conference on Plasma Spectrochemistry, titled “Mercury Speciation in Whole Blood: Why Liquid Chromatography with Vapor Generation Coupled to ICP-MS is Preferable to GC-ID-ICP-MS for Biomonitoring Studies.” During the interview, he discussed the public health importance of improved mercury speciation methods and the advantages of this analytical approach for biomonitoring applications.
The remaining three segments highlighted his work using a new type of X-ray fluorescence analyzer and ongoing collaborations with Z-Spec, a local company based in East Greenbush, New York, that manufactures XRF analyzers equipped with doubly curved crystal optics. One segment focused on a recent publication by Dr. Parsons in the journal Radiation Physics and Chemistry describing how XRF analyzers equipped with these optics can rapidly screen food products for toxic metals.
All four interview segments, along with a written summary, are available online:
- www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/previewing-a-talk-on-mercury-speciation-in-whole-blood
- www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/advances-in-xrf-instrumentation
- www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/the-future-outlook-of-deploying-xrf-analyzers-in-testing-complex-food-matrices
- www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/the-application-of-xrf-instrumentation-in-food-safety-monitoring
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