Thermo Scientific LTQ Orbitrap™ Mass Spectrometer Selected for Research in Disease Treatment and Prevention
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Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. has announced that the company’s award-winning LTQ Orbitrap™ linear ion trap mass spectrometer was chosen by the Institut de Recherches Cliniques de Montreal (IRCM) for use in a new proteomics research approach that could profoundly impact the current understanding of the human proteome.
The Thermo Scientific LTQ Orbitrap will play a major role in IRCM’s systematic analysis of human protein interaction networks, which has significant implications in the prevention and treatment of disease.
IRCM, founded in 1967, is a non-profit organization devoted to studying the causes of disease, developing new diagnostic procedures and discovering preventive and therapeutic approaches that help to enhance quality of life.
Defining the maps of protein interactions that regulate cell growth, differentiation and disease progression is the overall goal of the Human Proteotheque Initiative (HuPI), a project conducted by Dr. Benoit Coulombe, his research team at IRCM and his collaborators in various universities and research centers.
These “HuPI-Maps” will be made publicly available as an atlas describing some fundamental human molecular networks. This atlas should become a valuable resource for scientists interested in basic biological and biomedical research because enzymes and other proteins carry most of the biological functions required for cell growth and differentiation.
Central to the HuPI project is its experimental platform, including the Thermo Scientific LTQ Orbitrap mass spectrometer, which ultimately generates maps of protein interaction networks.
“What is most important is to develop a highly reliable and efficient discovery pipeline that generates interaction maps that are both as complete and as accurate as possible,” Dr. Coulombe said. “The specificity of our procedure to identify functionally relevant interaction partners is spectacular. The LTQ Orbitrap has definitely enabled us to make discoveries that have previously been impossible.”
