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news release:
Oxford Instruments Molecular Biotools Ltd Begins
Landmark Collaborations
Oxford, Sept. 26:
Oxford Instruments (LONDON
OXIG) Molecular Biotools (OIMBL) has entered into three landmark
collaborative agreements with Pfizer Global R&D, Queen Mary and Westfield
College and the University of Birmingham Institute for Cancer Studies. These
allow for the development of advanced and exciting applications in NMR science,
utilizing the dramatic enhancement in signal to noise provided by HyperSense™.
HyperSense™ is a groundbreaking in vitro DNP
polarizer capable of amplifying the baseline signal to noise of NMR systems by a
factor of up to 10,000 for 1D NMR spectral analysis. Announced at the
Experimental Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Conference (ENC) in April 2005,
HyperSense™ is the first commercial product of its kind that enables researchers
to achieve an unrivalled level of information quality and richness, while
opening up the field of practical NMR analysis to entirely new areas of
research. It is a modular instrument that will attach to any conventional NMR
system, to deliver polarization-enhanced samples using a solid-state dynamic
nuclear polarization (DNP) method recently licensed from GE Healthcare.
These organisations, representing some of the key
NMR groups across academia and industry in the UK, will investigate different
aspects of the use of the enhanced levels of signal to noise provided by
HyperSense™, in applications across life science research, pharmaceuticals and
chemistry.
At the Henry Wellcome Building for Biomolecular
NMR Spectroscopy in the University of Birmingham, Professor Michael Overduin and
Dr Ulrich Günther of the Institute for Cancer Studies will use HyperSense™ to
conduct further research to identify biological markers for different types of
cancer, and to develop new methods for determining the kinetics and dynamics of
protein-ligand interactions.
In comparison, Dr Adrian Davis of Pfizer Global
R&D, Sandwich, will investigate the applicability of HyperSense™ for
identification of trace chemical species, in support of pharmaceutical drug
development. His team is also likely to explore HyperSense™ as a tool for the
rapid characterization of compound libraries.
Prof. Geoff Hawkes of the Department of
Chemistry, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London will use
HyperSense™ to conduct research into molecular structures in several areas,
including fullerenes and carbon nanotubes, nitrogen containing pharmaceuticals,
and silicon in biofluids derived from implant materials. He said “This is a
wonderful opportunity to use cutting-edge technology to explore the use of DNP
in solving chemical problems which have so far proven too time consuming using
conventional NMR spectroscopy. In so doing we hope to show how routinely
applicable this technology is to more general problems of chemical structure
determination.”
Ulrich Günther, Scientific Director of the
Birmingham NMR centre said,” We are very excited about the prospects for
HyperSense™ DNP technology, which will open up new roads in metabolomics where
increased sensitivity will help with biomarker identification. This could lead
to new diagnostic tools and potentially offer the ability to detect different
types of cancer at an early stage. HyperSense™ may also create new possibilities
for NMR in drug design.”
HyperSense's potential in pharmaceutical research
is also supported by Dr Adrian Davis, Pfizer Global R&D, Sandwich, who said,
"The ubiquity of NMR as a chemical analysis tool in pharmaceutical chemistry
requires that we evaluate new techniques to enhance NMR sensitivity and
applicability. Through this collaboration we hope to learn much more about DNP
and how it might help us enhance our ability to determine chemical structure."
The diversity of NMR research applications
directly mirrors the flexibility of applications for HyperSense™. By providing
the information richness of NMR and enhancing the signal to noise by up to
10,000 fold, HyperSense™ avoids time-consuming and labor-intensive enrichment
processes that were previously requisite. OIMBL anticipates that any laboratory
wanting to look at subjects such as 13C and 15N in their natural abundance will
be interested in this novel instrument.
Frank Trundle, Business Director of OIMBL,
commented, "We are thrilled to sign collaborative agreements for this research,
which provides the scientific community with a superb tool to assess some of the
wide range of applications which may be enhanced or enabled using this
technology. OIMBL sees this as a fantastic opportunity to show how HyperSense™
is capable of enhancing traditional NMR research applications and, as the first
commercial system of its kind, HyperSense™ is expected to expand the use of NMR,
a technique that has been traditionally limited by lack of sensitivity. Our
partners, all leading researchers across the UK, will use HyperSense™ in a truly
challenging and varied range of research applications and this will allow them
to use an unparalleled technique across a wide range of applications."
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