Carleton University partners with Agilent to open new centre for life science research

Published: 24-Sep-2015

Equipped with Agilent's state-of-the-art mass spectrometers, gas and liquid chromatography systems, and bioinformatics tools

Agilent Technologies has opened a new centre for life science research in partnership with Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

Agilent has equipped the Carleton Mass Spectrometry Centre, located in the university's department of chemistry, with state-of-the-art mass spectrometers, gas and liquid chromatography systems, and bioinformatics tools.

The Centre will be an analytical resource for researchers and industrial partners across Canada.

Agilent's tools make it easier for scientists to combine, analyse and visualise data from experiments in genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics and lipidomics.

'This partnership will enable Agilent to develop new innovative mass spectrometry-based omics workflows for life science research,' said Agilent's Marketing Director, Academia and Government, Steve Fischer.

'It will make possible new biological discoveries using integrated biology to understand the mechanisms of disease.'

Dr Jeffrey Smith, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, Carleton University, added: 'Scientists will be able to use the sophisticated technologies in our centre to advance their research into small molecules, proteomics, metabolomics and lipidomics.

'With advanced instrumentation and application support from Agilent, we hope to promote new discoveries in biochemistry with the potential to transform medicine, agriculture and industry.'

The centre is using a new analytical method developed by two of the university's professors, Smith and Jeff Manthorpe.

The new method, known as TrEnDi (trimethylation enhancement using diazomethane), increases the sensitivity of mass spectrometry analyses by assigning a fixed, permanent positive charge to amino groups. It allows for increased sequence coverage and peptide detection in proteomics analyses, and better detection in metabolomics and lipidomics analyses.

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