Authors: Dietmar Knopp
Publish Date: 2006/05/05
Volume: 385, Issue: 3, Pages: 425-427
Abstract
After an exponential increase in the nineties of the number of publications per year on the development and application of immunoassays for environmental analysis output it has remained rather constant over the last five years Most of these papers have reported the development of new immunoassays for “old” analytes eg coplanar polychlorinated biphenyls PCBs polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons PAHs dioxins trinitrotoluenes pesticides and estrogens Since the early days of “environmental immunoassays” they have been considered as a valuable supplement to existing and rapidly developing chromatographic techniques because they have attractive features including high sensitivity and selectivity rapid detection and the possibility of analysis of difficult matrices without extensive pretreatment In other words immunoassays must find niches in addition to their nowadays generally wellrecognized power as sensitive and efficient screening tools
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