NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Thermo Fisher Scientific will handle mass spectrometry projects for Toronto’s University Health Network in a proteomics initiative focused on finding cancer biomarkers in cell lines, the company said today.
The Canadian researchers will work with Thermo Fisher’s Biomarker Research Initiatives in Mass Spectrometry, or BRIMS, Center in Cambridge, Mass., and will use the company’s LTQ Orbitrap and Quantum Ultra mass spectrometry systems to discover biomarker proteins in the secreted fluids of cancer cell lines.
The company said that researcher Eleftherios Diamandis, who heads the division of clinical biochemistry in the University of Toronto’s department of medicine and pathobiology, expects the approach the group is using to help speed up the validation of biomarkers and targeted assays.
Ultimately, the company said, the research could lead to a reliable blood test for cancers, including breast and colon cancer.
The company also said the BRIMS center will work with UHN to maintain a cross-validation workflow to “legitimize” biomarkers that were first validated in Toronto, and then validated a second time at BRIMS.