Agilent Technologies reports that senior scientist Samuel Mitchell of the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) in Belfast, UK, is the grand-prize winner of Agilent's Lab Makeover Sweepstakes
Samuel Mitchell has won an Agilent 1200 series high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system paired with an Agilent 6510 quadrupole time-of-flight LC/mass spectrometer (MS) system, valued at US$525,000.
This first-ever European promotion was designed to celebrate the largest multi-platform launch in the history of Agilent's life sciences and chemical analysis business: the 1200 series LC and the 6000-series LC/MS portfolio.
These products were introduced one year ago and have been met with wide industry acceptance.
"I entered the competition via email with a 'nothing to lose' attitude, as I do for any competition" said Mitchell.
"I completely forgot about it until I received an email informing me that I had won.
"Even after speaking to an Agilent contact, I could not fully take it in and thought that it must be a mistake.
"It took a number of follow-up calls from local Agilent representatives to confirm to me beyond a doubt that I had won.
"The scale of this prize is phenomenal".
The QTOF was chosen because it will allow researchers to collect data not possible with their existing technologies.
As Mitchell explained, "The QTOF is a new technology for us, and bringing it into our lab now is particularly good timing, as AFBI was created as a non-departmental public body from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in Northern Ireland in April 2006.
"The QTOF will enhance our technical capabilities thus helping us with future funding applications.
"We will be in a very privileged position within our sector".
He added, "We see it as a complementary technique to our existing MS technologies.
"It will be positioned beside competitor equipment, and we look forward to having the flexibility of different techniques.
"We know Agilent very well as a number of its gas chromatography/MS detector systems are included in our MS facilities onsite".
AFBI plans to use the system initially for shellfish toxin analysis - specifically, algal toxins.
In addition, a number of AFBI researchers hope to use it to gather data on naturally occurring peptides and proteins.
AFBI staff members will work with Agilent on method development and application work.
The system will be used immediately after installation.
"We extend our heartiest congratulations to Dr Mitchell and the AFBI staff, and look forward to helping them incorporate the LC/MS system into their testing portfolio," said Rick Carberry, senior director, Agilent LC/MS Marketing.
"The Lab Makeover Sweepstakes has been a great way to celebrate our LC/MS portfolio launch".
Last September, Agilent awarded a triple quadrupole LC/MS system in a similar sweepstake for North America.
