Whatever the Wavelength: The Wide World of Spectroscopy

This is naturally where the software for data evaluation comes into the equation. The range at Thermo Fisher Scientific extends from relatively research-oriented tools and platforms with open architecture, such as Proteome Discoverer and Compound Discoverer, through to platforms with pre-prepared templates and fully-automated data evaluation. “Here too, the challenge is to balance things — depending on the market and the customer requirement,” says Moehring.

Overall, Simon Nunn similarly sees the software issue as a very key point in all analytical methods: “Whether the need is to compare an unknown spectrum against a database, to use a sophisticated chemometric model or to manipulate a chemical 3D image — software is the bridge between data and information.” These days, though, it is not only local software solutions that are in demand. Nunn says that increasing numbers of users are asking for Cloud-based solutions, so that data is accessible more easily. The Omnic Anywhere, for instance, unveiled this year at Pittcon, is a Cloud solution for FTIR data.

Further moves in coupling technologies

Depending on the viewpoint taken — above, before or alongside everything else, a natural constituent in mass spectrometry is preparing often-complex samples from sometimes complicated matrices. In the broadest sense, this also includes separating the compounds to be analyzed e.g. using chromatographic procedures, as is current today. According to Moehring, “new technologies for direct analysis, for example via paper-spray technologies or other direct ionizing procedures, are currently in the discovery phase.” This means that coupling GC or HPLC, as the most widely-used coupling techniques in mass spectrometry, remains important. Including at Thermo Fisher Scientific. And in this area, too, things are still constantly changing.

“Nano LC continues to bear the tag of instability. I think we will see some further developments over the coming years in automation and standardization that contribute to data quality,” Moehring is convinced. But he also sees “a lot of potential, especially in connection with biopharma as a market” in capillary electrophoresis, which for a long time was practically ruled out from combining with MS due to the buffer systems used. And Moehring says that imaging is a very exciting theme in technology at the moment: “This is where, in my view, things have happened technologically on the source side, so with e.g. MALDI or DESI, which might be able to ensure that further value-added is created for the customer, via imaging mass spectroscopic procedures e.g. in combination with another technology, such as cryo-electron microscopy.”

Milestone Spectroscopy

When Ions Head off on their Travels: Opportunities and Challenges in Modern Mass Spectrometry

Simon Nunn, too, views linking as one of the trending issues for the years ahead: “Linking Raman or FTIR with rheology can deliver a major information gain on how chemical or morphological changes influence the flow properties of materials. And in microscopy too, there will be further advances in linking vibrational spectroscopy methods with optical, electron and sensor-based microscopy techniques.”

In all these, and in many other areas, Thermo Fisher Scientific has established itself as a driving force over past decades, with its broad portfolio of spectroscopic techniques, and in many areas it has achieved market leadership.

Literature:

[1] Curt Brunnee: 50 Years of MAT in Bremen; Rapid Communicatiions in Mass Spectrometry, Vol. 11, 694-707 (1997)

* Dr. I. Ottleben, M. Platthaus Redaktion LABORPRAXIS, E-Mail: editor@lab-worldwide.com

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