SCIEX Partners with University of Manchester to Develop Biomarker Discovery Centre and Multi-Omics Centre for Precision Medicine

SWATH^® Acquisition-based next-generation proteomics technology promises to make industrial proteomics a reality

Framingham, MA — SCIEX, a global leader in life science analytical technologies, has today announced that The University of Manchester, UK, has invested in a large suite of high-end SCIEX mass spectrometers for targeted and next-generation proteomics for its new Stoller Biomarker Discovery Centre. With SCIEX's SWATH® Acquisition technologies, the Centre will be one of the biggest clinical proteomics facilities in the world. It will focus on industrializing proteomics research, and spearhead a series of biomarker development projects and international collaborations.

Stephen Ayris (L) and Thomas Knapman (R) of SCIEX at the construction site of Stoller Biomarker Discovery Centre, UK

The Centre, which is supported initially by £18 million ($27 million) in funding, will also provide valuable research and analytical resources for the new SCIEX Multi-omics Centre for Precision Medicine, a partnership between SCIEX and the Stoller Biomarker Discovery Centre at The University of Manchester. The new center, expected to open in mid-2016, will include SCIEX scientists working in partnership with University researchers to develop and trial new omics workflows in a real-world setting.

Adverse drug reactions (ADR) are estimated to be the fourth leading cause of death in the US - ahead of pulmonary disease, diabetes, AIDS, pneumonia, accidents and automobile deaths¹. Precision Medicine is focused on getting the right drug to the right patient in the right dose, but understanding this interplay requires the high-throughput analysis of large sample sets in order to identify and then validate suitable biomarkers of drug response. Industrial-scale SWATH^® next-generation proteomics rapidly delivers the comprehensive data that are so urgently needed.

Traditional proteomics workflows have so far not been able to get biologically or clinically meaningful proteomics results across very large sample cohorts. However, SCIEX’s patented SWATH^® next-generation proteomics technology, which was developed in collaboration with Dr. Ruedi Aebersold at ETH Zurich, enables the quantification of thousands of proteins across large sample sets with a level of data completeness, quantitative accuracy, and reproducibility that was only previously achievable with 'gold-standard’ targeted multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) methods.

"SWATH^® is a disruptive technology that will allow us to be far more effective at biomarker discovery," said Professor Tony Whetton, Director, Stoller Biomarker Discovery Centre, The University of Manchester.

The University of Manchester's new research center will rely on SCIEX’s TripleTOF^® 6600 Systems with SWATH^® Acquisition for highly reproducible and large-scale biomarker discovery and validation. The University of Manchester has also invested in a number of SCIEX QTRAP^® 6500 Systems that will allow its researchers to quickly convert the novel biomarker discoveries into routine MRM-based targeted proteomics assays, rather than spending many months generating antibody-based immunoassays, which have recently been linked in the media to the reproducibility crisis in scientific research².

"The SCIEX TripleTOF instruments are the best suited systems for SWATH^® Acquisition," explained Prof Whetton. "We also chose the SCIEX QTRAP instruments for targeted protein quantification, which will allow highly powerful verification and validation of the biomarkers that we will discover through our SWATH^® next-gen proteomics pipeline."

"We aim to become the leading city for precision medicine. This partnership with SCIEX will enable us to be at the cutting edge of both mass spectrometry and biomarker discovery, and help us to take forward our complete precision medicine portfolio," he added.

To support the industrialization of proteomics, The University of Manchester is also investing in a number of liquid chromatography and automated sample preparation components for the Stoller Biomarker Discovery Centre, from SCIEX and other Danaher life science companies.

"The promise of large-scale quantitative proteomics can only be delivered through next-generation technologies that provide truly comprehensive data with the speed, sensitivity, quality and reliability that researchers in other fields, such as genomics, now take for granted," said Jean-Paul Mangeolle, President of SCIEX. "The cutting-edge technology plays a big part in advancing life science research. Our on-going commitment to developing synergies and partnerships such as with The University of Manchester will enable us to accelerate our next-generation technologies and bring them to a much wider audience."

¹FDA Website: Preventable Adverse Drug Reactions: A Focus on Drug Interactions
²Nature: Reproducibility crisis: Blame it on the antibodies