Thermo Obtains Exclusive License for Electron Transfer Dissociation (ETD) Technology from the University of Virginia

Thermo Electron Corporation has concluded a licensing agreement with the University of Virginia for Electron Transfer Dissociation (ETD), an innovative new ion fragmentation technology that provides sequence information not available from conventional methods currently in use on ion trap mass spectrometers.

Ken Miller, product marketing manager for Proteomics at Thermo, stated, "ETD is an application that benefits immensely from the large ion storage capacity and fast cycle time of Thermo’s Finnigan™ LTQ™ linear ion trap mass spectrometer. As a result, we fully expect ETD to be available for this instrument before the end of 2006.”

According to Miller, the power of ETD on the Finnigan LTQ has already been demonstrated for 1) mapping of post-translational modification (PTM) sites, particularly phosphorylation, 2) allowing more comprehensive proteomic sample profiling than with collision-induced dissociation (CID) alone, and 3) fragmenting and analyzing large peptide fragments as well as intact proteins. Results of these studies have been shown in recent seminars, technical posters, and presentations at major scientific conferences. This information is available at www.thermo.com/etd.

“ETD will help shed new light on many important, unanswered questions in contemporary biology,” said Dr. Don Hunt, principal investigator at the University of Virginia. “ETD represents a landmark advance in the field of proteomics. This new methodology is a powerful and reliable analytical solution for protein characterization.”

Dr. Hunt has used ETD to characterize the biochemical basis of histone protein action in the regulation of DNA transcription. Additionally, he has shown that the pattern of histone phosphorylation, methylation and acetylation is critical to DNA expression. “These studies would not have been possible without ETD,” added Hunt.

“Thermo has been working closely for several years with Dr. Hunt’s laboratory on the development of ETD, and we are pleased to be licensing it from the University of Virginia,” said Iain Mylchreest, vice president and general manager, Life Sciences Mass Spectrometry at Thermo Electron Corporation. “This clearly demonstrates Thermo’s commitment to acquiring innovative new technologies and developing integrated solutions that address the research and analytical challenges facing the proteomics community.“