Bruker Daltonics announced the launch of its Clinprot Forum for the support of customers in protein/peptide biomarker discovery and validation, as well as in clinical and applied proteomics
At the 97th American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2006, Bruker Daltonics announced the launch of its Clinprot Forum for the support of customers in protein/peptide biomarker discovery and validation, as well as in clinical and applied proteomics.
The Clinprot product line (for research use only) covers various aspects of biomarker analysis with special emphasis on body-fluid and tissue profiling, Maldi molecular imaging, and protein/peptide-based micro-organism identification and classification.
The Clinprot solution includes magnetic bead sample pre-fractionation, Maldi-Tof analysis and streamlined bioinformatics and visualization tools.
The goal of the newly created international Clinprot Forum is to establish efficient networking among a rapidly growing worldwide community of Clinprot users.
This discussion forum covers various aspects of clinical proteomics, such as biofluid profiling and validation, biomarker identification, the Maldi Molecular Imager and the Maldi BioTyper for microorganism identification.
The Clinprot Forum facilitates efficient information exchange and should stimulate the formation of research collaborations between different laboratories.
Special discussion threads include topics like sample preparation, standardization, biomarker identification and bioinformatics methods.
A Clinprot Forum download site provides the latest protocols for sample preparation with Clinprot magnetic beads, as well as recent publication lists and application notes.
The Clinprot Forum, which is moderated by expert Bruker application scientists, is available for all Bruker Daltonics customers and can be reached via Bruker's website.
Nils von Neuhoff, head of molecular genetic diagnostics, Institute of Cell and Molecular Pathology at Hannover Medical School, Germany, commented: "Researchers in the field of proteomic biomarker analysis and profiling of body fluids need to cover knowledge in diverse areas, like standardization of sample preparation, mass spectrometry and sophisticated mathematical approaches for pattern matching.
"Last but not least, they need to have a deep clinical knowledge concerning useful definitions of matching sample cohorts, anamnesis of patients and therapy decisions.
"For all those interdisciplinary tasks, it is very helpful to have the backup of a network of leading scientists from all over the world with special knowledge in different sub-disciplines of clinical proteomics.
"The collection and distribution of the latest protocols supplied in Clinprot Forum is of additional benefit for all participants".
Wolfgang Pusch, assistant vice president for clinical research at Bruker Daltonics, explained: "In our Clinprot customer group, we have deep and diverse knowledge about biomarker analysis by means of mass spectrometry, but it is distributed all over the world from Asia/Pacific to Europe to the Americas.
"Some of these experts do not have the chance to meet personally and exchange information face-to-face on a regular basis.
"Our new Clinprot Forum will facilitate networking between our customers, and moreover accelerate the dissemination of best practices and protocols, of relevant recent literature and publications, as well as of timely Clinprot method updates."
