NextGen Includes Thermo Fisher’s Mass Spec Technology to Its Suite of Biomarker Services

Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Biomarker Research Initiatives in Mass Spectrometry Center (BRIMS) will work with NextGen Sciences to apply new technologies to the latter’s biomarkerexpress™ platform. The collaboration will provide NextGen Sciences with access to Thermo Scientific mass spectrometry technology, which the company will add to its existing Thermo Scientific-based workflow.

The biomarkerexpress platform is a suite of biomarker services for developing, validating, and applying targeted SRM assays for peptides and proteins in biofluids and tissues. NextGen Sciences has been working closely with BRIMS over the past year to develop an assay to verify osteoarthritis (OA) biomarker candidates in synovial fluid. The putative biomarkers were discovered at Harvard Medical School and Case Western Reserve University. The OA biomarker panel is currently being tested at NextGen Sciences on a 1,000-patient sample cohort.

NextGen Sciences has already developed and continues to develop assays for verifying protein biomarker panels that can be implemented immediately on the Thermo Scientific TSQ Vantage triple stage quadrupole. These include: a 29-protein biomarker panel in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) for Alzheimer's disease, a 20-protein biomarker panel in urine for prostate cancer, a 10-protein biomarker panel in plasma for colon cancer, a 10-protein biomarker panel in urine for pancreatic cancer, and a Her2 biomarker panel in tissue.