Shimadzu Announces the Start of Its Blood-Based Amyloid Mass Spectrometry Service dedicated to drug discovery and development

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Shimadzu Announces the Start of Its Blood-Based Amyloid Mass Spectrometry Service

Dedicated to Drug Discovery and Development

Shimadzu Scientific Instruments introduces the Amyloid Mass Spectrometry (MS) Service for early screening of amyloid-positive subjects. This simple blood analysis method enables early and accurate prediction of amyloid pathology in the brain with an easy-to-acquire blood sample.

Although the screening analysis is Research Use Only and cannot diagnose Alzheimer’s disease, it is ideal for opening the door to new advancements in research, identifying suitable candidates for clinical trials and helping pharmaceutical companies in their testing of candidate drugs.

Unlike conventional positron emission tomography (PET) imaging and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) testing methods, Shimadzu’s blood amyloid-beta analysis method is minimally invasive and suitable for large-scale deployment. This new approach to blood analysis is capable of being used for predicting abnormal amyloid-beta concentration, which can be a marker for amyloid pathology in the brain. New blood-based biomarkers were discovered in 2014 by Shimadzu Corporation and the Japanese National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology (NCGG).

The blood analysis works using a combination of immunoprecipitation and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry (IP-MS). This technique was first established by a team of scientists including Shimadzu’s Koichi Tanaka, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2002 for developing a method for mass spectrometric analysis of biological macromolecules.

For more information about Shimadzu’s Amyloid MSTM Service, visit www.AmyloidMS.com

For more scientific background about Shimadzu’s blood amyloid-beta analysis: A. Nakamura, N. Kaneko et. al., "High performance plasma amyloid-β biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease" doi: 10.1038/nature 25456

Amyloid MS is a trademark of Shimadzu Corporation.