Section C: Characterization of Samples and Priorities of Chemicals to be Analysed

Abstract

The meeting so far has primarily been concerned with the selection of biological specimen materials, human and otherwise, for banking at low temperatures for a long (but undefined) period of months, years, perhaps decades, the ultimate objective being their analysis for trace components which while at present unidentified (or not yet clearly identified) may then be recognized as being of significance. Today we discuss the priorities for the chemicals to be selected for analysis and the characterization of samples with respect to these: which chemicals we should analyze for and how we should do the analyses. There is in this, as has been pointed out at previous meetings, an element of paradox in that we cannot be certain which of the substances at present unrecognized may later prove to be of importance in this way. And we have to assume that the storage conditions which ensure the stability of known contaminants (and which themselves may be the subject of a small element of uncertainty) will also be appropriate for these unrecognized (perhaps as yet undiscovered) compounds (1).