Agilent Technologies has been selected by the South African Doping Control Laboratory as the primary provider of gas-phase testing instruments for the 2010 World Cup.
The South African Doping Control Laboratory is certified by the World Anti-Doping Agency and will be responsible for all doping testing during the football competition.
The laboratory is equipped with Agilent gas chromatography (GC) and mass spectrometry (MS) instruments to confirm the chemical identity of suspected banned substances found in testing samples.
Agilent is providing five GC/MS systems and an Agilent 7000 Series Triple Quadrupole GC/MS system.
Company technicians will provide technical support throughout the event.
According to Dr Pieter J van der Merwe, director of the South African Doping Control Laboratory, the 7000 Series Triple Quadrupole GC/MS system is increasing the sensitivity and specificity of detection.
A gas or liquid chromatographic system is used to separate and detect the components in complex samples such as biological fluids.
The high sensitivity and specificity of the mass spectrometer is ideal for doping analysis since there is no room for error.
As each compound is detected, the mass spectrometer captures a chemical 'fingerprint', which can be compared to a reference database to provide unambiguous confirmation of the compound.
