Waters Corporation and Prosolia, Inc. have inked a pact to collaborate for developing models of Prosolia's Omni Spray Ion Source that is compatible with Waters mass spectrometers.

The Prosolia Omni Spray Ion Source brings the novel technique, desorption electrospray ionization (DESI), to the laboratory. DESI is a simple, sensitive, gentle, and versatile ionization method, which allows for the direct sampling of surfaces without any sample preparation and under ambient temperature and pressure conditions. This technique is effective for not only small molecules but also large molecules, such as peptides and proteins. The Omni Spray Ion Source has applications in drug discovery, in situ analysis of biological tissues and other fragile surfaces, as well as in homeland security and environmental monitoring.

"We are delighted with the opportunity to work with Waters in making DESI available for their instruments," stated Kevin Boscacci, President of Prosolia. "Our development time will be cut in half by having Waters support."

The initial effort will be to develop an Omni Spray Ion Source for the Waters LCT Premier XE, an orthogonal acceleration time-of-flight (oa-TOF) benchtop mass spectrometer. The LCT Premier XE is a bench-top instrument with a range of powerful and innovative technologies for sensitive, specific and flexible compound identification.

The LCT Premier XE system's high sensitivity Z-Spray API interface, ion transfer optics and TOF analyzer is capable of detecting very low-level components with full spectral information. "The versatility of the LCT Premier XE system makes it a perfect platform for developing the DESI source compatible with Waters mass spectrometers," said Michael P. Balogh, Principal Scientist at Waters.

Said Boscacci, "Once the design is completed for the LCT Premier XE we will quickly adapt the source for other Waters mass spectrometers."

This new model of Omni Spray Ion Source will be introduced at the 55th ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry being held in Indianapolis on June 3-7, 2007.

Prosolia, Inc. was founded in 2003 to commercialize revolutionary analytical chemistry technologies, developed in the laboratory of Prof. R. Graham Cooks at Purdue University, which enhance and expand the use of mass spectrometry. The company's first product line, Omni Spray™ Ion Source, was introduced in November 2005 and utilizes the novel atmospheric pressure ionization technique, desorption electrospray ionization (DESI). The company has laboratories in Indianapolis and West Lafayette, Indiana and is funded in part by the Indiana 21st Century Research & Technology Fund.

Waters Corporation holds worldwide leading positions in three complementary analytical technologies - liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry and thermal analysis. These markets account for approximately $5.0 billion of the overall $20 - $25 billion analytical instrument market.