LECO and Berkeley Lab Partner for Metabolomics Advancements

LECO Corporation has entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) for the development of metabolomic applications and tools. Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division will receive access to the LECO Citius™ LC-HRT (High Resolution TOFMS) for applied research in metabolomics. Designed for complex sample analysis, LECO’s HRT instrumentation provides acquisition speeds of up to 200 spectra/second, mass resolution up to 100,000 FWHM, and mass accuracy less than 1 ppm.

The research will be led by Dr. Trent Northen, a staff scientist with Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division and with the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI). Dr. Northen’s research aims to construct detailed models of cellular communities’ metabolism and energy through an integrated program of metabolite imaging and metabolomic analysis. This approach is being applied to understand the dynamics of microbial communities, as well as the metabolic drivers of breast cancer.

“For LECO, this collaboration is a wonderful opportunity to support the work of a leader in metabolomics, and to be part of the tradition of scientific excellence at Berkeley Lab,” said Dr. Jeff Patrick, Director of Marketed Technology, LECO Separation Science. “We believe this partnership will accelerate and facilitate the addressing of both biological and medical questions.”