Proteomics and Metabolomics Facility Recognized for Innovation in
Biological Mass Spectrometry
MILFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 28, 2014--
At a ceremony at Colorado
State University’s Fort Collins, CO campus, Waters Corporation
officially welcomed the University’s Proteomics
and Metabolomics Facility into its Centers
of Innovation Program. Under the direction of Dr. Jessica Prenni,
the facility has earned a reputation for excellence in applying
non-targeted proteomics and metabolomics using liquid chromatography and
mass spectrometry (LC/MS) to advance food and veterinary science and
clinical and microbacterial research.
At a ceremony and symposium welcoming the Proteomics and Metabolomics Facility at Colorado State University into the Waters Centers of Innovation Program are (left to right) Eric Fotheringham, Director-Waters Centers of Innovation Program, Waters Corporation; Steven McDonough, General Manager - Western Business Operations, Waters Corporation; Dr. Jim Murphy, Principal Research Scientist, Waters Corporation; Dr. Jessica Prenni, Director-Proteomics and Metabolomics Facility, Colorado State University and Dr. Alan Rudolph, Vice President-Research, Colorado State University. (Photo: Business Wire)
“We take pride and ownership that our discoveries will have a meaningful
impact and we recognize the importance of partnerships with corporations
like Waters,” said Alan Rudolph, Vice President for Research, Colorado
State University. “We’ve seen the impact on science that instrumentation
–microfluidics separations, higher resolution, and the ability to look
at complex mixtures – can have both here and abroad. We are really
excited about our partnership with Waters as a way to fuel new
discoveries and allow us to live up to our land grant ethos.”
As part of its academic mission, the Proteomics and Metabolomics
Facility develops and validates assays, tools and techniques. In the
last year, Dr. Prenni’s team has assisted over 200 principal
investigators in 24 departments at six colleges.
“One of the biggest advantages of our partnership with Waters is early
access to technology, such as the ionKey/MS system,” said Dr. Prenni.
“Using this technology, we developed an assay for one of our clients for
five clinically-relevant steroidal compounds which has been applied to a
clinical data set of 1,000 serum samples from post-menopausal women. The
method showed significant increases in sensitivity, decreases in solvent
consumption as compared to traditional assays as well as an ability to
separate structural isomers. This project is a great example of how our
collaboration with Waters has led to the development of new technologies
and allowed us to advance the way we answer important biological
questions.”
One industry closely watching the output of Dr. Prenni’s team is the
brewing industry. A
recent study with their collaborators at the New Belgium Brewery led
to a better understanding of the molecular changes that occur in beer
during the aging process and has been applied to the development of
improved brewing methods that can potentially increase beer stability
over a longer time and under a range of storage conditions.
Also on hand to congratulate Dr. Prenni and her team was Eric
Fotheringham, Director, Waters Centers of Innovation Program. “Today we
applaud the work of Dr. Prenni and her team. Their novel applications
for analytical technology are leading to faster scientific progress and
we look forward to a long-lasting working relationship.”
Fulfilling its mission requires a variety of state-of-the art
instrumentation. The Proteomics and Metabolomics Facility is equipped
with a Waters Xevo®
G2 QToF, Xevo
G2 ToF, and two Xevo
TQ-S systems -- all paired with Waters ACQUITY
UPLC® systems, an instrument for separating sample
components from one another and precisely delivering the analytes one by
one into the mass spectrometer where the amounts of each analyte are
measured and identified.
In conjunction with the Centers of Innovation Program ceremony, Colorado
State University (CSU) and Waters Corporation co-organized a symposium
on Advances in Biological Mass
Spectrometry featuring presentations by Dr. Prenni and Dr.
Karen Dobos of CSU, Dana Sedin of the New
Belgium Brewery and Professor
Vladimir Shulaev of the University of North Texas.
About Metabolomics
Metabolomics
is the study of molecules known as metabolites that are produced by
living organisms as the result of biological processes. Metabolites have
been used as biomarkers for decades. The presence of sugar in urine as a
diagnostic test for diabetes is one of the oldest examples. Mass
spectrometry is an extremely sensitive means of studying the full
array of metabolites produced by an organism. From a few microliters of
blood or extract scientists are beginning to learn a great deal about
the biological underpinnings of disease processes, the response of an
organism like a plant to an environmental stress or the response of a
test subject to the administration of a drug simply by measuring the
type and concentration of metabolites present.
The non-targeted approach to metabolite profiling championed by Dr.
Prenni allows her team to separate all the metabolites in a sample over
time, measure the masses of all of the metabolite molecules, determine
which molecules are different between two sample groups, and process the
raw data - chromatographic retention times, accurate masses, and
intensity values - for every detected metabolite in the sample to
determine which metabolites are statistically significant.
About Colorado State University and the Proteomics and Metabolomics
Facility
Colorado State University, located in Fort Collins, CO is a land-grant
institution founded in 1870. With a student enrollment of about 31,000,
CSU is an established Carnegie Research University and is among the
nation’s leading research universities.
The Proteomics and Metabolomics Facility functions as an enabling
resource for research and development programs at Colorado State
University. The facility strives to build instrumental capabilities that
exceed the normal resources of individual research programs, and to make
those technologies available as a shared resource. Furthermore, the
facility provides an environment rich in expertise and educational
resources, and works to foster collaboration across the CSU community
About Waters Centers of Innovation Program
Waters
Centers of Innovation Program recognizes and supports the efforts of
scientists facilitating breakthroughs in health and life science
research, food safety and food science, environmental protection, sports
medicine and many other areas. Waters provides scientists and their
institutions in the Program with early access to pre-commercialized
novel technology that may lead to scientific breakthroughs and
jump-start a research project. In other instances, collaborative efforts
between Waters experts applications scientists and Program participants
have accelerated research in important ways.
Other researchers and research centers recognized by the Waters Centers
of Innovation Program include: Professor
Ganesh Anand, National University of Singapore; Professor
Luiz Claudio Cameron, UniRio, Brazil; Professor
David Clemmer, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana; Professor
Daniel Tsun-Yee Chiu, Chang Gung University; Dr.
Joseph Dalluge, University of Minnesota; Professor
Marcos Eberlin, University of Campinas, Brazil; Prof.
Chris Elliott, Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland; Professor
John Engen, Northeastern University, Boston, Mass.; Professor
Albert J. Fornace, Jr., Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer
Center, Washington, D.C.; Professor
David Goodlett and Dr.
Maureen Kane, University of Maryland School of Pharmacy; Dr.
Frank Gonzalez, National Cancer Institute; Dr.
Carlo R. Largiadèr, Inselspital University Hospital; Professor
Julie Leary of the University of California – Davis; Professor
Amit Kumar Mandal, St. John’s Research Institute, Bangalore, India; Professor
John McLean, Vanderbilt University; Professor
Arthur Moseley of Duke University, Durham, North Carolina; Professor
Jeremy Nicholson, Imperial College London; Dr.
Devin Peterson, University of Minnesota; Dr. Serge Rezzi, Nestle
Institute of Health Sciences; Dr.
Ryan Rogers, Future Fuels Institute, Florida State University; Professor
Pauline Rudd, National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and
Training; Professor
James Scrivens, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK; Professor
Vladimir Shulaev, University of North Texas; Dr.
Norman Smith, Kings College London; Professor
Sarah Trimpin, Wayne State University; Professor
Bert van Bavel, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden; Caroline West and
Eric Lesselier, University
of Orleans, Orleans, France; and Professor
Vicki Wysocki, Ohio State University.
About Waters Corporation (www.waters.com)
For more than 50 years, Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) has created
business advantages for laboratory-dependent organizations by delivering
practical and sustainable innovation to enable significant advancements
in such areas as healthcare delivery, environmental management, food
safety, water quality, consumer products, and high value-added chemicals
worldwide.
Pioneering a connected portfolio of separations science, laboratory
information management, mass spectrometry and thermal analysis, Waters
technology breakthroughs and laboratory solutions provide an enduring
platform for customer success.
With revenue of $1.9 billion in 2013, Waters is driving scientific
discovery and operational excellence for customers worldwide.
Waters, XEVO, UPLC, ionKey/MS, ACQUITY UPLC and ACQUITY are trademarks
of Waters Corporation.
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/multimedia/home/20141028006066/en/
Source: Waters Corporation
Waters Corporation:
Brian J. Murphy, +1 508-482-2614
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Relations
brian_j_murphy@waters.com