GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) which is the Official Laboratory Services Provider for the London Olympics 2012 has now sourced the mass spectrometry equipment from Waters to undertake the anti doping tests.

In this regard, a new centre funded over five years with an investment of £5 million each from the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Department of Health’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is helping to build and develop the state-of-the-art equipment and expertise of the London 2012 anti-doping facilities provided by GSK and operated by King’s College London.

In partnership with King’s College London, GSK is providing the facilities and equipment to enable expert analysts from the former to independently operate a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accredited laboratory during the London 2012 Games. The laboratory in Harlow will see more tests carried out than at any other Games, with every medallist who steps on the podium and up to 50 per cent of all athletes being tested.

The MRC-NIHR Phenome Centre, the first-of-its-kind in the world to enable researchers to explore the characteristics of disease in order to develop new drugs and treatments for patients.

A phenome describes a person’s chemistry which covers all the molecules in blood, urine or tissues that are the result of genetics and lifestyle. This mixture of molecules is changing all the time and is influenced by factors such as diet, environment and even stress levels. It is linked to how a person responds to disease or to treatments such as drugs. Now researchers at the Centre will investigate the phenome patterns of patients and volunteers by analysing samples usually blood or urine rapidly. It will help them to discover new ‘biomarkers’ and the know-how will aid scientists in finding new, safer and more targeted treatments. Phenome analysis has already been used to ‘tailor’ cancer treatment to suit individual patients by, for example, minimizing the toxicity and maximizing the efficiency of drug treatments for colon cancer GSK.

The Centre will enable the UK to make its world-class phenotyping technology and expertise available to both researchers and the life sciences industry to accelerate the translation of medical discoveries into better healthcare. It is led by a collaboration of academic partners which is Imperial College London, and the suppliers of nuclear magnetic resonance by Bruker and mass spectrometry equipment Waters Corporation.

“We have been leading developer of liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry and related chemistry and informatics technologies. Now we are proud to be part of this first-of-a-kind research centre and the opportunity to work with such distinguished partners in support of our mission: to develop technology that allows science to provide answers to the critical challenges we face. This centre is a significant advancement for the science of phenome-typing, enabled by a powerful partnership of leading academic institutions, government and companies like ours providing the latest innovations. We fully expect this centre will multiply our understanding of disease and help us to improve the health of populations around the world,” said Dr Rohit Khanna, vice president of Worldwide Marketing for Waters Corporation.