EUREKA

The World ‘s Largest Range of Diagnostic Kits for chromatographic analytical instruments

Many years ago, Dr. Gilberto Coppa , Dr. Stefano Sartori and dr. Angela Cusenza decided to pursue a professional path that few companies had dealt with:

Simplify, Improve, Standardize

the analytical procedures existing in clinical laboratories, thanks to the realization of Ready to use Kits using HPLC, GC, GC-MS, LC-MS/MS chromatographic techniques.

From the very outset, they concentrated their activity on the development of an Analytical Method for the Determination of Urinary and Plasma Catecholamines in HPLC with Fluorimetric Detection.
The decision to work with Catecholamines was due to the shared thought, along with many Oncologists, that the need of Formulating a Correct Diagnosis of cancer patients was fundamental and extremely important

pheochromocytoma
paraganglioma
neuroblastoma

The concentration of catecholamines (Noradrenaline, Adrenaline, Dopamine), which are a group of hormones produced by the adrenal glands, are greatly increased in biological fluids in the presence of such pathologies.

To help doctors to properly diagnose these tumor forms, they asked some laboratories about their problems and issues in their structures since the 1970s.

Here are some of the problems raised:

Direct measurement in amperometry was sufficiently sensitive for the analysis of noradrenaline and urinary dopamine, but it was not sufficiently sensitive for the quantitative analysis of urinary adrenaline.
Direct measurement in amperometry was not sufficiently sensitive for the analysis of plasma catecholamines even when starting from a high plasma volume (at least 2 ml).
Direct measurement in amperometry had taken the role of reference technique for a long time, but the amperometric detector proved to be difficult to handle for routine analysis.
Despite the replacement of the amperometer detector with the, more sensitive Coulometric detector, it was still difficult to handle for routine analysis as well as being particularly costly.

After collecting these information relative to the problems arising from the use of the amperometer and coulometric detectors they decided to “create”

Eureka Lab Division Research and Development Team

Our team worked long for the development of a fluorimetric, chromatographic, analytical method for the determination of catecholamines with the benefit that:

International research from the ’90s was geared towards selecting more powerful analytical methods capable of selectively analyzing catecholamines in biological fluids, compared to methods born at the end of the 1970’s in amperometry.
Works published by the Japanese groups of Y. Ohkura, K. Imai, H. Iizuka, M. Yamaguchi and by the Dutch G. Alberts and F. Boomsma, led to the selection of a selective quantitative yield reagent for the catecholic group that was transformed to a benzotriazole group, with a FLUORESCENCE response of 50 times higher than the amperometric detection.

Their work involved the development of a biologic matrix purification method that was more self-explanatory than the methods used up to that time.

After purification, the sample undergoes a process of derivatization.

At this point, the derivatized sample is read in fluorimetry, allowing it to obtain excellent sensitivity and specificity for the analysis.

Simplify, Improve, Standardize

The analytical procedures existing in clinical laboratories, regarding the dosage of both urine and plasma catecholamines.

But this was just the beginning … Since 2000 the Eureka Lab Division Team, has continued to develop

New Chromatografic Analitycal Methods

Initially the Team dealt with

Liquid Chromatography (HPLC / UHPLC) coupled to detectors:

UV/VIS
FLUORIMETER

(for analysis of SPECIAL CLINICAL CHEMISTRY, CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY and OCCUPATIONAL TOXICOLOGY)

They then dedicated ourselves to
Gas Chromatography (GC) coupled to detectors:

FID (flame ionization detector)
ECD (electron capture detector)
MASS SPECTROMETER

(for analysis of SPECIAL CLINICAL CHEMISTRY, OCCUPATIONAL TOXICOLOGY AND FORENSIC TOXICOLOGY)

Finally, since 2008, we have focused our work on
Liquid Chromatography (LC) coupled with
Mass Spectrometer / Triple Quadruple / Ion Trap

(for analysis of SPECIAL CLINICAL CHEMISTRY, CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY AND FORENSIC TOXICOLOGY)

In order to be able to continuously increase the range of new Eureka Kits,
the company has for several years been working with the

“STUDY GROUP OF EXTERNAL AUTHORS”

They are Specialists in Clinical Biochemistry, Pharmaco – Toxicology and expert in
Chromatographic Analytical Techniques.

They collect the requests of Doctors who are in close contact with patients and iniziate for the development of Chromatographic Analytical Methods that will then be engineered into EUREKA KITS.

It’s like having many research and development teams across Italy working
to increase the development of new chromatographic analytical methods
that will then be engineered in the form of ready-to-use kits.

After a long research and development work by the Eureka Lab Division Team and by the Study Group of External Authors, Eureka Kit are Validated to GUARANTEE their

Accuracy
Precision
Recovery
Selectivity
Calibration Curve
Reproducibility
Stability