Thermo Fisher Scientific has partnered with Taiwanese life science company Syncell to integrate the latter’s Microscoop Mint technology into its Orbitrap Astral mass spectrometer.
A specialist in proteomics, Syncell’s technology performs real-time, microscopy-guided spatial protein purification.
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By adding protein mapping and discovery functionality across biological systems in areas such as oncology and immunology to Thermo Fisher’s spectrometer, the integration is expected to improve upon traditional antibody-based spatial methods.
The partnership will enable researchers to implement spatial proteomics with high subcellular resolution to investigate proteins across tissues and cells without relying on predefined targets.
According to the company, Syncell’s integration with Thermo Fisher’s Orbitrap Astral will therefore result in “fully integrated” spatial proteomics workflows.
Syncell founder and CEO Jung-Chi Liao commented: “This collaboration with Thermo Fisher reinforces our mission to democratise access to high-resolution, unbiased spatial proteomics.”
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By GlobalDataCommenting via a press release from Syncell, Luisa Iruela-Arispe, chair of the department of cell and developmental biology at the Northwestern Medicine Feinberg School of Medicine, claims the integration “transforms the capacity” to interrogate biology.
Iruela-Arispe said: “By uniting the nanometre-scale spatial resolution of the Syncell Microscoop technology with the ultra-sensitive detection of the Astral mass spectrometer, we have achieved an analytical capability that pushes the boundaries of cell signalling, revealing spatial and chemical detail that has never before been accessible.”
At the 2025 American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) annual conference, which took place on 1-5 June, Thermo Fisher revealed that the Orbitrap Astral Zoom MS, a new version of its spectrometer, claimed to deliver 35% faster scan speeds, 40% higher throughput, and 50% expanded multiplexing capabilities.
Elsewhere in diagnostic developments, Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) reached a definitive agreement to merge its biosciences and diagnostic solutions business with Waters Corporation in a deal valued at nearly $17.5bn last month. The deal is expected to expand Waters’ addressable market to around $40bn with the addition of diagnostics, including mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography.
In June, Illumina moved to bolster its proteomics portfolio with the $425m acquisition of SomaLogic. The agreement will result in the Colorado-based company’s SomaScan Proteomics Assay’s implementation on Illumina’s next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms.
