Name: Johannes Gerding
Diploma / M.Sc degree: Leibniz University Hannover, Germany
(September 2011)

PhD Project: Development of a high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry multimycotoxin method for the analysis of mycotoxins

Abstract of Research Project

Some grain afflicting fungi are producing a variety of toxic secondary metabolites. Grain products, contaminated with these mycotoxins, may pose a serious threat to human or animal health. Although mycotoxin contamination is monitored with routine methods, there is still a high demand for suitable multimethods for the quantification of mycotoxins and their metabolites in food and feed as well as physiological samples. With this information it would be possible to do an exposure assessment of mycotoxins for a certain animal or human population.

This project will focus on the development of methods for sample preparation and quantification of a group of mycotoxins using liquid chromatography-tadem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) techniques.

The high performance of modern LC-MS/MS systems in combination with isotopically labeled internal standards opens up the possibility to develop multimycotoxin methods for the parallel analysis of several mycotoxins.