"...freeze/thaw histories are often poorly documented.." might be my favorite understatement in the history of understating things. Okay -- everyone should read this paper -- even if this study only directly applies to human serum/plasma studies. This is super powerful.
I am so pumped. This has so much value -- and I passed by this paper because the title sucks.
It should be something like
"A Rapid QC for whether someone screwed up your plasma samples by leaving it out on a bench for 3 days after thawing it!"
You don't know where those patient samples are coming from most of the time. It's a huge problem in our field even finding out what color the top of the tubes are (there are secret phlebotomist codes -- purple is EDTA or green or backwards). Not knowing this can totally wreck your study. But -- freeze/thaw monitoring? That's what this is!
This modification happens to albumin at a predictable rate. So predictable that they can blind samples and then tell how long that plasma has been sitting around not cold.
Man...I love this.....I don't care if you've depleted it, there is still plenty of albumin around. If you've got a question -- like -- did I leave that box of priceless samples sitting out? You have a way to backtrack it. Yes -- this is an intact mass analysis -- and yes -- albumin doesn't fly all that well (due to all the dumb cysteines, I believe) but -- man -- what a tool I don't think we've ever had before!
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