Company Announcements

First Detect, an Astrotech company, announced in November 2015 the passing of CEO Bob C. Kibler. Thomas B. Pickens III, chairman and CEO of Astrotech and chairman of 1st Detect, will serve as acting CEO.

In November, Microsaic named Dr. Jim Ramage, a company director, as CEO, effective January 31. He previously served as director of VG Instruments.

In December 2015, the University of Maryland, Baltimore granted Pataigin exclusive rights to its method for quickly and accurately identifying dangerous pathogens, with the aim of developing a rapid, point-of-care device. The method uses a bar code for lipid coatings. MS is used to identify specific strains of bacterial, fungi and yeast.

Under a memorandum of understanding, Protea Biosciences is using Agilent Technologies’ instruments combined with its technology to create workflows that focus on developing new methods for metabolomics.

Waters announced in January the ACQUITY UPLC I-Class IVD/Xevo TQ-S micro IVD System is now manufactured as a US FDA Class I medical device and CE marked in Europe.

Waters and BioCity, a UK bioscience incubator company, agreed to launch an open access analytical lab located at Alderley Park. It is scheduled to open in early 2016.

SCIEX announced an exclusive comarketing agreement with Pressure BioSciences to market a complete solution for protein extraction, digestion and quantitation in all tissue types. The companies will promote Pressure’s pressure cycling technology sample preparation systems with SCIEX SWATH Acquisition technology and MS systems.

SCIEX signed a licensing agreement with the DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory for MS technologies, including an open-port sampling probe, to advance MS adoption to applications outside the lab.

Product Introductions

In December 2015, Shimadzu Scientific Instruments released the ATHAP MALDI matrix kits to improve detection of hydrophobic proteins or peptides containing transmembrane domains. The technology was developed in partnership with Hiroshima University and the Koichi Tanaka Laboratory of Advanced Science and Technology.

Bruker released MetaboScape software, which extends metabolomics data analysis for nontargeted experiments based on metabolic pathway mapping.

Thermo Fisher Scientific launched the Thermo Scientific 253 Ultra High Resolution Isotope Ratio MS (IRMS), which enables scientists to access the direct conditions under which molecules were formed, transported, stored and degraded. Thermo also introduced the Thermo Scientific 253 Plus 10 kV IRMS, featuring enhanced precision for small sample sizes, and the 1013 ohm amplifier technology.

Hiden released the HPR-40 DSA (Dissolved Species Analyzer) MS for bioreactor quantification.