Cerno Bioscience Announces MassWorks™ Software for High Mass Accuracy Data From Any Mass Spectrometer

Cerno Bioscience today announces the unveiling of MassWorks, an easy-to-use post acquisition software package that utilizes Cerno’s patented MSIntegrity™ technology to achieve high mass accuracy even on conventional mass spectrometers of unit mass resolution.

New MassWorks, developed for pharmaceutical and biotech environments, integrates the powerful MSIntegrity calibration technology to obtain up to 100X improvement in mass accuracy in a fast and versatile MS software application package. By combining novel calibration techniques with sound mathematical principles, Cerno methodologies can provide significant improvements to all types of MS data, both high and low resolution. This innovative, patented technology was launched at PITCON booth #2219, Orlando, Florida, March 12-16 2006.

MassWorks can improve the results from any mass spectrometer from unit mass resolution instruments through to FTMS systems. It can routinely extend the capabilities of unit mass resolution instruments to obtain mass accuracies of up to 5ppm, approximately 100X better than results typically obtained. This makes it possible to perform accurate compound identification through elemental composition determination, a capability usually only available on more expensive systems. MSIntegrity also improves the performance of high resolution MS systems, typically improving mass accuracy by 3X or greater. On all systems, significant improvements in signal-to-noise and peak shape are achieved as well.

“MassWorks is a first-of-its-kind software application that allows mass spectrometrists in pharmaceutical environments to significantly reduce mass measurement errors, improve signal-to-noise, and lower detection limits, all without requiring the often cumbersome and time consuming peak shape tuning process”, says Dr. Yongdong Wang, president of Cerno Bioscience. “This then allows the application of other advanced data processing algorithms in biomarker discovery, metabonomics, and proteomics research. The patented methodology is the result of extensive theoretical work and careful experimental validation on a complete range of commercial mass spectrometers. The methodology has been well tested in the field and can also be readily integrated with commercial instruments to enable real-time processing.”

MassWorks utilizes Cerno’s DirectRead™ technology to read most instrument data formats directly, eliminating the need for importing or exporting MS data to the clipboard or utilizing intermediate exchange formats. This saves time, reduces transcription errors, simplifies file management, and saves substantial disk space. As DirectRead doesn’t alter the original data, it assists compliance with common regulatory requirements such as GLP and 21 CFR Part 11.

High mass accuracy calibrations using MSIntegrity technology are created through a Calibration Wizard which guides the user through the steps of selecting and processing standard ions. Calibrations are maintained independently of vendor data and are applied in real-time in the MassWorks data browser. This powerful browser provides many of the features common to mass spectrometry in addition to the MSIntegrity calibration routines.

In addition to providing improved mass accuracy, the calibration also improves the signal-to-noise and the peak shape of the MS data. This allows for the application of advanced processing routines such as an improved method for generating eXtracted Ion Chromatograms (XIC) that will reject chemical interferences in complex mixtures. This method, known as AMPXIC™ (Accurate Mass Profile XIC), uses the entire isotope mass profile to achieve highly selective ion filtering. The technique is particularly useful for qualitative MS analysis such as Metabolite ID.