Equipping researchers to find new biomarkers for heart and circulatory disease

Funds to purchase two liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole-mass spectrometers (TQ-MS)

Mass spectrometry (MS) is a powerful tool that scientists use to analyse proteins and other chemicals from cell and tissue samples. There is currently much interest in using MS to search for markers of diseases or their risk factors - rather like finding a needle in a haystack. The Cardiovascular Sciences van Geest Biomarker Facility, a component of the Leicester British Heart Foundation (BHF) Cardiovascular Research Centre, has established a successful discovery programme for ‘biomarkers’ using MS technology. But they now want to build on this further so that they can study large groups of patients to find new biomarkers and introduce them quickly to clinical practice. This will require being able to test multiple biomarkers simultaneously, something that the latest state-of-the art MS technology is now able to do. To seize this potential, BHF and the University of Leicester have recently funded two new state-of-the-art MS instruments called chromatography-triple quadrupole-mass spectrometers (TQ-MS). They will be accessible to all scientists at the BHF Cardiovascular Research Centre so that they can measure multiple substances in biological samples at high speed. The more markers and samples they can analyse, the faster they can find important markers of disease. The hope it that these biomarkers can then be turned into tests to pick up diseases early.