Bruker and JMI Laboratories Announce Collaboration for Mass Spectrometry

JMI Laboratories is applying the Bruker MALDI Biotyper™ to a wide variety of international antimicrobial resistance surveillance studies utilizing the SENTRY Program platform (>300 sites in more than 40 countries and six continents). Among these programs, comprehensive sampling of invasive fungal infections involves nearly 2,000 samples of yeast and moulds, each requiring the highest quality of identifications, and currently requiring gene amplification and sequencing. The Bruker MALDI Biotyper will streamline reference-quality identifications via its rapidly evolving library of clinically important fungi.

Invasive fungal infections are associated with high morbidity and mortality while prompt diagnosis can result in more optimized therapy reducing both mortality and costs of treatment. Current methods for identification of fungi include biochemical, phenotypic, microscopic and molecular methods. Numerous peer-reviewed studies have examined the capabilities of the MALDI Biotyper for fungal identification and Bruker recently launched a separate RUO library of filamentous fungi at ECCMID 2012. MALDI Biotyper testing can be completed in hours and therefore has the potential to produce more rapid results than traditional microbiological testing methods.

The goals of this collaboration include the validation and expansion of the MALDI Biotyper database of protein fingerprint profiles for identification of unusual filamentous fungi, and the expansion of protein fingerprint profiles for identification of unusual yeast species. It therefore will enhance the MALDI Biotyper database as well as determine if the Bruker MALDI Biotyper platform can partially or fully replace the laborious traditional biochemical testing currently used by JMI Laboratories.

Dr. Mariana Castanheira, research scientist at JMI Laboratories and speaking for Professors M.A. Pfaller and R.N. Jones stated: "Contemporary understanding of emerging resistances among antifungal agents requires companion use of reference susceptibility test methods such as CLSI and EUCAST and molecular-level reference-quality organism identifications. The Bruker MALDI Biotyper provides us with an evolving degree of species identification certainty and processing value."

George Goedesky, Executive Director of Microbiology Business Development at Bruker Daltonics commented: “We are very excited to establish the collaboration with JMI Laboratories in the field of fungal identification. Compared to classical identification methods, the MALDI Biotyper has been demonstrated to have a superior performance for common yeast representing roughly 95% of the isolates in most clinical microbiology laboratories. With JMI’s acknowledged expertise in the field and large collection of sequenced fungal isolates, especially rare and unusual yeast and moulds, we will even further improve the coverage of the MALDI Biotyper reference library for this very challenging organism group.”