Media Backgrounder – High level information for journalists
Thermo Fisher Scientific in Mass Spectrometry
Much of science is devoted to answering two questions: “What is it made of?” and “How much of it is there?” Mass spectrometry is the technology of choice used to answer these questions in a wide range of applications, ranging from testing vegetables for pesticides, to testing river water for pharmaceutical residues through analyzing human proteins in search of better cancer therapies. Mass spectrometry (MS) provides very sensitive, very precise means of separating substances into their individual components, identifying those components and often measuring how much of each component is present.
Thermo Fisher Scientific’s roots in commercial MS reach back to 1947, when a German shipyard Atlas Werke AG created the Atlas MAT (Measurement And Analysis) division to manufacture water testing instruments. They designed and built their first MS in one year, which was sold to BAYER AG. Back then, MS apparatus was very difficult to use, wasn’t very reliable and was expensive to operate. The company remained small for its first decade. Prototype of MS1, Atlas MAT’s first By 1962, a series of innovations had fueled growth to mass spectrometer, 1947. more than 400 employees, and the company had become independent. Meanwhile, Stanford Research Institute scientist Robert Finnigan founded Electronics Associates’ Scientific Instruments Division in California in 1963, where his team developed the first commercial quadrupole (major innovation) mass spectrometer a year later. Dr. Finnigan then assembled a team to found Finnigan Instrument Corporation in 1966, which made instruments to analyze water pollutants, study how drugs react and test athletes for banned drugs. Finnigan Corp. acquired Atlas MAT and in 1981 went public to create Finnigan MAT. Nine years later, stockholders accepted an offer by Thermo Instrument Systems which evolved into Thermo Fisher Scientific. The company produced a steady stream of innovations, including the first fully computer-controlled mass spectrometer, ever-greater levels of performance, the first GC-MS for “routine” use in environmental labs, the first hyperbolic quadrupole mass analyzer (a technological breakthrough), the first commercial linear ion trap and many others. The landscape changed dramatically in the top-of-the-line MS market in the late 1990s when Russian inventor Alexander Makarov developed “Orbitrap” analyzer technology, which made many new types of research possible. Dr. Makarov joined Thermo Fisher as an R&D scientist, and the first of a long line of Orbitrap-based instruments was introduced in 2005.
How it works The technology is very complex, but basically a mass spectrometer is a machine that weighs molecules. Most samples, like blood or even air, are mixtures of molecules, and these must be separated, usually using a technique called “chromatography”. The sample is pushed through a tube containing special packing material, and the packing slows some molecules more than others, thus separating them. In the mass spectrometer, the separated molecules
are fed into an “ionization source” that breaks them into ions, which are particles that have electrical charges. In a vacuum, these ions are propelled through electrical fields before they hit a detector. By varying the electrical fields and measuring the speeds or paths that ions pass through them, scientists can determine the weight of each ion. The data showing the weights of all the ions in one run is the “mass spectrum.” These mass spectra are like fingerprints, and scientists use these to identify the compounds in a sample, sometimes determine the structure of these compounds and measure how concentrated they are. There are many different designs of mass spectrometers to meet specific needs of the scientific community, from routine testing of food products for safety through monitoring drug manufacturing and analyzing tissue to research the causes disorders like autism or cancer.
Thermo Fisher is a global leader in mass spectrometry instruments, software, supplies and support. The main categories are:
Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry Some samples are best separated as vapors or gases, and gas chromatography is the best separation technique in front of the mass spectrometer. Thermo Fisher offers a wide range of systems ranging from basic workhorse instruments to those offering the industry’s highest levels of performance.
DFS High ISQ Single Quad ITQ Ion Trap Resolution GC-MS GC-MS GC-MS High performance Workhorse instrument Sensitive entry level analysis of environment, for round-the-clock QA/QC upgradable to food samples . analysis of routine research-grade.
TSQ Quantum XLS GC-MS: The Pesticide Analyzer TSQ 8000 Triple Complete system TSQ Quantum XLS preconfigured for Quad GC-MS Ultra GC-MS/MS High throughput and multiresidue pesticide The Gold Standard in precision for routine analysis. high-performance GC- analyses. MS/MS.
Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry Thermo Fisher Scientific has achieved a reputation for building particularly powerful, rugged, high-performance LC-MS instruments for disease research including proteomics and metabolomics, clinical research, monitoring the environment, testing food, pharmaceutical process monitoring, sports anti-doping analyses, drugs-of-abuse testing and forensics. They range from workhorse single quadrupole LC-MS instruments through limit-stretching Orbitrap Fusion “Tribrid” systems. The lineup of Thermo Scientific LC-MS systems includes:
Triple Quadrupoles – widely used in life science research and routine analyses such as food testing, environmental analysis and pharmaceutical quality control.
TSQ Quantiva TSQ Endura TSQ Quantum New leader in sensitivity With best-in-class Ultra for quanitation sensitivity and For routine analyses robustness
Linear Ion Traps – useful for screening for unknown compounds, peptide identification, measuring drug metabolism, determining structure of small molecules.
Velos Pro Linear LTQ XL Linear Ion Ion Trap Trap
Orbitrap-based LC-MS – Orbitrap technology is proprietary to Thermo Fisher Scientific, and is known for the ability to perform very challenging quantitative and qualitative analyses at very high resolution and accurate mass performance levels.
Orbitrap Fusion Tribrid Completely new class of instrument combining three mass analyzers into
novel “Tribrid” architecture for unmatched performance.
Q-Exactive PLUS Exactive PLUS Orbitrap Elite
LTQ Orbitrap XL
Media contact:
Stu Matlow
408-965-6408