New Objective Drives Forward Towards the Patient with Purpose Through the Analysis of Intact Proteins

July 6, 2022 – Littleton, MA (USA) New Objective, Inc., the global leader in innovative solutions for nanoflow and microflow LC-MS celebrated over 25-years of patented innovation delivering solutions to analytical chemists that bring real viability to analyze biologically active species. Gary Valaskovic, Research Fellow and Co-Founder, New Objective, punctuated New Objective’s outstanding and ongoing evolution in empowering analysts around the globe with the tools to tell a story of biology as it relates to the patient by analyzing the active species – intact proteins – in stating “for analytical chemists to be successful in helping biologists to understand treatment with real viability, they have to analyze the biologically active species”.

Working with Fred McLafferty at Cornell University, Gary was introduced to the intrinsic connection between biology and proteins and the key to better understand biology: knowing what proteins are present at the cellular level. The ability to analyze intact proteins – a biologically active species – was realized with the introduction of a molecular microscope (an emitter) to a mass spectrometer via Gary’s skills in microfabrication. The SilicaTip™ emitter, a patented (US Patent 5,788,166) technology now ubiquitous to the qualitative proteomics market and universally accepted as the standard for high-performance low flow LC-MS analysis, was the key to unlocking the analysis of intact proteins as published in Science, Gary’s collaborative work together with Fred and Neil Kelleher. And like the Big Bang, LC-MS based analysis of intact proteins was born.

The seminal worked published in Science birthed the business of New Objective, founded on the iconic SilicaTip emitter and its launch into the market to deliver tools enabling anybody to do detailed analysis of proteins. New Objective worked to bring electrospray into focus with a suite of technology supporting the emerging and growing field of proteomics and quickly established themselves as The Leaders in Flow Technology. While the industry has diverted from the original focus on proteins and their biological relevance when intact, with a heavy focus on performance and qualitative summaries of peptides, similar to Gary and the team at New Objective, Neil Kelleher has retained the foundational focus on biology from his time at Cornell. In pioneering the application of LC-MS based analysis of intact proteins through Top-Down Proteomics, Neil brings purpose through the direct connection to the patient via the analysis of intact proteins and their viability as biomarkers.

Launching with its seminal work, New Objective’s portfolio of solutions supported by a foundation of patented and integrated technology has not deviated from its focus to make a difference with purpose for the patient by understanding biology through the analysis of proteins. The New Objective FlowChip™, introduced to the market in 2018, has been the key to unlocking the biological relevance of proteins through the analysis of intact proteins and more specifically proteoforms, as recently published by Gary’s Science co-author in 1995, Neil Kelleher. Neil together with Rafael Melani and colleagues at Northwestern University, recently published in Science an evolution in intact protein analysis via LC-MS with the establishment of a reference map of human proteoforms. Their ongoing work builds on the analysis of biologically active species – proteins – and drives it further with proteoforms, demonstrating that proteoforms are more specific biomarkers than proteins as recently shared by Rafael and his presentation titled Blood Proteoform Atlas and the Discovery of Biomarker Candidates in Liver Transplanted Recipients using Proteoform-Reaction-Monitoring (PfRM) at the  70th ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The FlowChip, an integrated solution for microflow LC-MS builds on the foundational innovation of the SilicaTip for intact protein analysis with the patented integrated technology in the PicoFrit® (US Patents 5,997,746; 6,190,559; 6,395,183) coupling an emitter with a column for integrated separations (US Patent 9,646,815). A novel standard for Everyday use, the FlowChip, continues to empower anybody – chemists to biologists to clinicians – to do protein analysis with its patented packaging technology (US Patents 6,190,559; 6,395,183), enabling ease-of-use while delivering rugged, robust and reproducible, high-performance results. The legacy of the first SilicaTip emitter and its power as a molecular microscope to probe intact proteins to understand their biological relevance powers the FlowChip, an integrated version of the first molecular microscope bringing to analysts focused on the patient with the purpose to provide clinically relevant biomarkers and maps that show relationships (proteoforms), a solution that is ubiquitous in its ability to generate meaningful – viable – results.