An educational event held in the Lake District by The Chromatographic Society, has been hailed a ‘tremendous success’, by president, Dr Paul Ferguson. 

The four-day course for post-graduate students and novice chromatographers took place at the Wordsworth Hotel in Grasmere, and coincided with the Society’s diamond anniversary year.

Delivered by a number of renowned expert chromatographers with more than 120 years of experience between them, namely Professor Mel Euerby from Shimadzu, Tony Taylor from Crawford Scientific, Professor Tony Edge from Agilent, Dr John Lough from the University of Sunderland and Dr Paul Ferguson from AstraZeneca, the course focused on the fundamental aspects of HPLC theory and practice, ranging from the importance of physico-chemical parameters, mobile phase and column selection to sample preparation and gradient chromatography which sat well alongside practical opportunities to look inside LC instrumentation and critiquing chromatographic methods.

23 delegates from a diverse range of applications backgrounds (both academic and industrial), and with differing levels of prior experience, gathered for the course, which had a very practical industrial focus.  With varying lecturing styles, changes of pace and depth of content, there was something for everybody.  Participant, Natasha Beasley provided the following glowing feedback after the event:

“I had the most amazing time away and have been completely overwhelmed by the information thrown at me whilst being in a place that was truly magical.  All of your enthusiasm is infectious and completely made it for me!   There’s nothing better than listening to people who truly know and LOVE their subject.  I came away with so much from the course.”  

“The Society’s committee were keen to organise something slightly different from the usual diet of one or two-day symposia and to this end, decided to hold a training event,” explains Dr Paul Ferguson.  “Historically, this is an area the Society were highly active in; organising HPLC and chiral HPLC courses in the 1980’s and early 1990’s (often at the University of Surrey under the guiding influence of 2016 Jubilee Medal winner, Dr Derek Stevenson).”

“The Lake District provided the ideal ‘retreat’ setting with scope for group social activities during necessary short breaks from the very intensive science training sessions.  It was a very successful and productive weekend and feedback so far has been extremely positive.  I should also like to thank our sponsors: Shimadzu, YMC and VRS, without whom, we would not have been able to organise this event and progress our aim of supporting separation science in the UK.”

So successful was the event, that the Society is now hoping to plan another ‘Grass Roots’ educational event next year in a similar format.

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