RapifleX MALDI PharmaPlus Solution for uHTS launched by Bruker

At the 64th ASMS Conference, Bruker announces the launch of the new rapifleX™ MALDI PharmaPulse™ (MPP) solution.  It is the latest addition to Bruker’s portfolio of innovative products designed to assist pharmaceutical, biotech and CRO customers to accelerate drug discovery, and rapifleX MPP can dramatically lower the cost of ultra-high throughput screening (uHTS) with further improved results.

Ultra-high throughput screening today is primarily performed by fluorescence techniques, which require labeled compounds. Mass spectrometry offers label-free screening, and inherently reduces or avoids false positives, making expensive and time-consuming hit qualification redundant.

However, for large screening campaigns of millions of samples, mass spectrometry so far could not offer the required speed and robustness.  The new rapifleX MPP solution is the first robust, ultra-high throughput mass spectrometer which offers the speed, specificity and robustness of mass spectrometry for large primary screens.

Dr. Jens Höhndorf, Head of Bruker Daltonics Instrument R&D, commented: “The new rapifleX MPP is the result of Bruker’s innovative development of MALDI mass spectrometers. It reflects our passion for and knowledge about this technology and its unique applications.

The rapifleX MALDI-TOF with its new 10 kHz scanning laser technology, enhanced sensitivity and exceptional robustness-by-design opens entirely new applications for MALDI mass spectrometry and allows our customers to improve their existing applications, especially for molecular MALDI mass-spec imaging (MSI) and now also for MALDI-uHTS.”

About the rapifleX MALDI PharmaPulse Solution

As a dedicated uHTS solution to accelerate drug discovery, the rapifleX MPP provides numerous advantages over traditional technologies. Its label-free detection of substrates and products accelerates assay development, reduces complexity of screening, and avoids artifacts from interferences with the labels used in traditional uHTS technologies.

W. Adam Hill, D. Phil., Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Prospective Research, Inc. in Beverly, Massachusetts, stated: “The MALDI PharmaPulse solution has demonstrated impact on drug discovery today, providing a robust, label free, multiplex capable solution at high throughput.  The introduction of rapifleX is an important extension, bringing MALDI PharmaPulse to ultra-high throughput speeds and increasing the robustness of the platform for large screens."

Compared to existing LC/SPE-MS HTS solutions, the rapiflex MPP is 100-1000x faster and uses about 100x less solvent, without the need for LC columns and other LC consumables.

Based on Bruker’s proprietary new 10 kHz smartbeam® 3D laser system developed for the rapifleX, and incorporating a new integrated microtitre plate (mtp) sample changer and HTS automation solutions (e.g. robotics and automation software from HighRes Biosolutions, Woburn, MA), this is the first mass-spectrometry based, label-free uHTS solution, using standard 1,536 mtps, or even the latest 6,144 mtps.

The rapifleX MPP completes the analyses of a 1,536 mtp in less than 8 minutes, and due to its extreme robustness is ideally suited for primary screens of millions of compounds, with significantly lower cost per sample and unprecedented primary screen ‘true hit’ rates.