Thermo Fisher Scientific recently announced a number of new partnerships in conjunction with the annual American Society for Mass Spectrometry Conference in Atlanta.

Thermo Fisher is collaborating with Newomics, a supplier of microfluidic emitters for liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) applications, to develop and optimize new microflow LC-MS workflows for the validation of disease biomarkers. The companies will combine Thermo Scientific microflow LC-MS systems and the Thermo Scientific Nanospray Flex ion source with Newomics' multi-nozzle emitters to achieve the benefit of nanospray flow rates and the throughput and robustness of microflow LC-MS.

"Combining our unique emitters with Thermo Fisher's microflow LC-MS expertise will improve the selectivity and sensitivity of workflows, helping scientists to detect even low-abundance analytes in clinically relevant samples, like blood and urine," said Newomics Founder and CEO Daojing Wang in a statement.

Thermo Fisher is also teaming up with Evosep, a provider of sample preparation technologies for protein-based research, to develop high-throughput clinical research proteomics workflows for profiling large plasma sample cohorts for proteomics, translational research, and pharmaceutical applications.

The partners will combine the Thermo Scientific Q Exactive HF-X mass spectrometer and the Evosep One liquid chromatography solution to develop standardized and high-throughput analytical protocols for processing challenging plasma samples.

"Our work with Evosep aims to accelerate clinical proteomics through the development of standardized workflows our customers can rely on to drive improvements in disease research," said Ken Miller, VP of life sciences mass spectrometry marketing at Thermo Fisher, in a statement.

In addition, Thermo Fisher is extending an existing collaboration with Biognosys, a developer of proteomics solutions, to develop data-independent acquisition (DIA) mass spectrometry-based workflows for the quantification of target proteins in plasma and other body fluids, for applications across proteomics, translational research, and pharmaceutical development.

Most recently, the partnership has combined intelligence-driven mass spectrometry technology from Thermo Fisher with the PQ500 Plasma Quantitation kit from Biognosys to develop the Thermo Scientific SureQuant PQ500 method for analyzing plasma and other human body fluids. The method is supported on both the new Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Exploris 480 mass spectrometer and the Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Eclipse Tribrid mass spectrometer. The SureQuant internal standard-triggered PRM (IS-PRM) enables researchers to quantify 500 plasma proteins rapidly in a single workflow.

The partnership has also enabled the application of mass spec-based BoxCar scanning to DIA for non-targeted, label-free quantitation. Under the extended collaboration, the companies will continue to improve the efficiency of routine analysis of clinical samples and to provide scientists access to advanced instrumental methods and workflows, as well as new software, to process complex datasets generated from DIA workflows.   

"The next phase of our collaboration will progress the application of mass spectrometry-based plasma analysis with highly multiplexed accurate quantification in translational and clinical research, supporting the discovery of new biomarkers and drug targets," said Biognosys CEO Oliver Rinner in a statement.