Laboratory work collaboration

The authors laboratory work was supported by CICYT (BQU2000-0235) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (Grup Consolidat and Centre de Referenda en Biotecnologia). The enthusiastic collaboration of Dr. Miriam Royo, Gloria Sanclimens, Aida Martinez, and Meritxell Teixido at the Barcelona Biomedical Research Institute, Barcelona Science Park, University of Barcelona in the experimental portion of the work and the preparation of the manuscript is greatly appreciated. 

An important aspect of QA is related to the participation of laboratories in collaborative projects which enables them to check the performance of methods and to share expertise with colleagues working in similar fields. In this respect, improvement schemes are particularly well suited and were successfully used for evaluating and improving the state-of-the-art of speciation studies in Europe (Quevauviller, 1998b). 

Before conducting an interlaboratory study the aims should be clearly defined. An intercomparison can be held [7] (i) to detect the pitfalls of a conunonly applied method and to ascertain its performance in practice, or to evaluate the performance of a newly developed method (ii) to measure the quality of a laboratory or part of a laboratory e.g. audits for accredited laboratories) (iii) to improve the quality of a laboratory in collaborative work with mutual learning processes (iv) to certify the content of a reference material. 

The author would like to thank present and past members of his laboratory and collaborators from other laboratories for their contributions to the work summarized here. He would also like to acknowledge the National Instimms of Health for support fiom g ts AI25920 and AI44138.1 wish to thank Buddy Ullman and Nicola Carmr for comments on the manuscript. 

Lim received the fellowship for the academic year 1923-24, which he spent in A. J. Carlson s department of physiology at the University of Chicago. Carlson set Lim to work with his own protege, Andrew Conway Ivy. Lim s collaboration with Ivy produced three long papers. It is impossible to determine the order in which the work was done. Lim may have done much of the laboratory work, but he cannot be held responsible for the conclusions. The papers were clearly written after Lim left Chicago, and in any event. Ivy was the dominating member of the team. 

In the laboratory, I was fortunate to have many good collaborators including Dr. Kazuyuki Chihara, Dr. Dragoslav M. Misic, Professor Byun-Rin Cho, Dr. Akiyoshi Sakoda, Dr. Ki-Sung Ha and other students. The technical assistance of Mr. Toshiro Miyazaki and Mr. Takao Fujii in laboratory work was invaluable. This volume was written based on the work of this group and 1 am very grateful to these colleagues and to many others not listed here. 

We assume that the analyst in the organic laboratory always collaborates with a specialized spectroscopist. It is important, therefore, that he know the possibilities and the extent of the application of spectral methods for his work. 

As previously discussed, perfluoro [15]crown-5 has great potential as a NMR imaging agent (4J. This crown ether has only one fluorine resonance making very sharp pictures during brain scans and spinal scans of animals possible. Perfluoro [15]crown-5 is also used successfully as an oxygen carrier in collaborative studies between our group and Dr. Leland Clark s laboratory. Work at Air Products has established that the perfluoro crown ethers are nontoxic in animals and are therefore very different from hydrocarbon crown ethers. 

Acknowledgments The author acknowledges the various associates in his laboratory and collaborators for their valuable contributions and whose works were an integral part of this manuscript. The author is also grateful for the assistance of Katherine Wu, Erica Keng, and Tiffany Chin in the preparation of this manuscript. The continuous assistance of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center is also acknowledged. 

School, before winning a County Scholarship to Manchester University. Cockcroft moved from Manchester to Cambridge, where he worked with Rutherford at the Cavendish Laboratory, and collaborated with Walton on a high voltage apparatus for accelerating positive ions. In his words ... 

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