Olympic steroid scandal

[Optimus B]

Can any of you guys explain how the analysis is done? Just something quick, nothing elaborate. I'm guessing that the way I thought analysis was done is WAY off.

it's pretty basic actually. the sample is cleaned up first with some sort of extraction. then it is separated via gas chromatography. afterwards, it is blown apart and subjected to mass spectrometry (ms). in ms, the molecule is blown apart and each molecule has a characteristic way in which it fragments. this gives a spectrum, which is compared to standards. this is for qualitative analysis by the way. for quantitative analysis, they just use gc and a known internal standard to calculate concentrations.

 

[flex2win]

i read this earlier today, pretty interesting...