IonSense and Cerno Bioscience Introduce Low Cost DART® Mass Spectrometer with Accurate Mass Capability

IonSense, Inc. and Cerno Bioscience, LLC today announce the integration of Cerno's MassWorks™ software with the DART® GSX system, recently introduced at Pittcon 2013. The IonSense DART GSX system enables ambient pressure ionization on the very popular Agilent 5975 C/MSD. Utilizing Cerno's patented calibration technology the DART GSX delivers accurate mass assignments in seconds at less than half the cost of industry standard high resolution mass spectrometers. The capability to confirm mass values for intact ionized molecules address the unmet needs of QA/QC chemists in a variety of industries served by the Agilent MSD product, such as food safety, forensics, and chemical analysis.

This combination of innovative products reduces the cost of acquisition of an accurate screening instrument to under $100,000. IonSense currently supplies its popular DART-SVP source for use with high resolution mass spectrometers from all of the LC/MS vendors. "Many laboratories in the food, fragrance and forensic analysis business would like to have a high performance LC/MS instrument," according to Brian Musselman, President of IonSense, "those systems just cost too much and use lots of organic solvents adding to operating costs." Direct analysis in real time (DART) technology saves time by eliminating significant sample prep, and is useful for rapid screening of samples with most analysis requiring only a few seconds.

Cerno BioScience has supplied its award winning MassWorks software for over 6 years according to company Founder and President Yongdong Wang, Ph.D. The software uniquely determines accurate mass elemental composition on a quadruple MS through 100x improvement in mass accuracy and the novel concept of spectral accuracy.

The companies co-market the product, offering the Cerno software and follow-up training program to all customers who purchase the DART GSX. As people come to know the value of accurate mass, Musselman expects a rapid expansion of the market for the Cerno / IonSense product, "Basically there is nothing like an accurate mass value to confidently determine a compound."