Sigma-Aldrich® Receives Funding from Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation
St. Louis, Mo. - March 13, 2012 - Sigma-Aldrich Corporation (Nasdaq: SIAL) announced today it has received special funding from the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI) to support the rapid commercialization of new bioanalytical product lines in mass spectrometry and quantitative microbe detection in food and environmental matrices. The effort aligns with the Company's analytical strategy of delivering innovative analytical consumables and providing solutions to analyze any chemical or biochemical in any sample matrix, focusing on the food safety, environmental health and life science markets.
Using the CTI funding, Sigma-Aldrich will be working with Professor Renato Zenobi at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich to commercialize a micrometre-scale device that prepares multiple single cells on an array for analysis using MALDI mass-spectrometry. "Mass spectrometry is one of the fastest growing analytical methods and we are seeing an increased focus on metabolomics and other bioanalytical applications," stated Professor Zenobi.
Zenobi and his colleagues have already taken measurements of yeast metabolites using MALDI mass-spectrometry data from single cells. They can detect metabolites in the low attomole range (around one million molecules) and have identified more than 200 correlations, for uses that include determining whether increases in one metabolite correlates with decreases in another. Key to this technique is the micrometre-scale device, which Sigma-Aldrich anticipates will be ready for the market in late 2012.
Sigma-Aldrich will also use the funds to focus on the commercialization of Certified Reference Materials for detection and quantification of microbes using a new proprietary technology. Certified Reference Microorganisms manufactured with this technology will possess a certified number of Colony-Forming Units (CFU) that can be preserved over an extended period of time in a highly viable status and will no longer require an extended recovery time prior to their use. These products should give microbiologists the opportunity to test the performance and the limits of their analytical tests for food and water safety and environmental control.
Sigma-Aldrich has the exclusive rights for commercialization of both technologies. For more information on Sigma-Aldrich analytical products and services, visit www.sigmaaldrich.com/analytical-chromatography.html.
