Instrument makers including Thermo Fisher, Agilent Technologies, AB Sciex, and Bruker are either developing FAIMS devices for use with mass spec or have recently presented research on use of the technology, which has the potential to add significant separating power to conventional LC-MS platforms.

ProteoMonitor spoke to David Oxley, head of the protein mass-spec lab at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, UK, about the new mass spectrometers his lab has obtained, what research they'll be used for, and the use of mass spec in proteomics and metabolomics research generally.

In a third quarter earnings call, CEO Douglas Berthiaume said growing demand for the Acuity H-Class UPLC platform helped drive a 9-percent rise in instrument sales year over year, while total receipts increased 9 percent and profit widened 25 percent.

According to the patent, the company identified the proteins serum amyloid A and S-sulfonated transthyretin as biomarkers for myocardial infarction and developed a three-marker panel consisting of SAA, SS-TTR, and known MI biomarker myoglobin.

CEO Marc Casper said, with regard to the company's mass spec business, that "we have leading technology, leading position, a great suite of new introductions... coming out."

In results reported Thursday, the company said that its Cologuard test achieved of 64 percent sensitivity for pre-cancers and 85 percent for cancer and a specificity of 88 percent.

DNA-based tests are being developed to detect colon cancer earlier.

This year's study will focus on the identification of electron transfer disassociation spectra, which differ considerably from traditional collision-induced dissociation spectra and require new approaches to interpretation.

NIH Grants in Proteomics, Sept. 7 to Oct. 21, Part 2 of 2

John Hunt, John McCall, John Mulligan, Lynn Silver

The University of Chicago received a $7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to purchase a supercomputer that will be used primarily for basic, translational, and clinical research projects within the university.

The school will $25 million in federal grants to develop computational infrastructure and tools, methods, and policies to help US-based academic centers gather, analyze, and share the large quantities of biomedical data they regularly generate.

G-DOC contains genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, methylomics, and transcriptomics data, as well as detailed clinical treatment and outcome information, for 2,953 breast cancer patients.

The company said that the next version of its SNP & Variation Suite software will be able to run on off-the-shelf GPUs and detect copy number variations 10 to 20 times faster on a GPU than on a similarly priced CPU.

The accord is intended to lead to joint research and training projects focused on prevention, early detection, diagnosis and treatment of cancer, infectious diseases, and other health concerns.

The EU funding will support a multi-center effort to inactivate all remaining genes in the mouse genome and to store the data for research purposes.

The government of Qatar will work with Imperial College London experts to start a large biobank with up to 100,000 donors.

In Brief This Week is a Friday column containing news items that our readers may have missed during the week.

Emerald Biostructures and Signal genetics this week appointed scientific advisory boards, while Response Biomedical's COO resigned, and more.

MPI will use the X-Series storage system to consolidate project-related home directories, file shares, and scientific data archives into a single storage resource, Isilon said.

Syngenta will use GenomeQuest's platform for next-generation sequencing data-management.

Recent Patents in Bioinformatics, September — October 2010

SYBYL-X Version 1.2, Images, GeneMarker

Whatever the reason, choosing to leave a postdoc position early is "never an easy decision" says one blogger, who borrows from personal experience to lend her advice.

One blogger suggests FDA's slower pace is "the new normal."