The topic of the highly informative seminarpresented this month was “Microbial identification for the 21^st Century”. This presentation was given by guest Speaker Mr. Robert Sandolin on behalf of the Bruker Daltonics in collaboration with the DARIS Centre.

      One of the major issues with the identification of Microorganisms is the length of time it takes to positively identify the microbial species such as Gram +/- bacteria, yeast, fungi and mycobacteria in any given sample. This problem is exasperated to a greater extent if the analyst is looking at an unknown sample. The relatively new Maldi ToF system by Bruker Daltonics appears to identify a large number of microorganisms by measuring a unique finger print of the organisms. Specifically, the system measures highly abundant proteins that are found in all microorganisms. The characteristic patterns of these proteins are used to reliably and accurately to identify a particular microorganism by matching the respective pattern with an extensive open database to determine the identity of the microorganism down the species level.

       The seminar on this system was very effectively delivered by Mr. Sandolin and was received well by all attendees. The DARIS Centre looks forward to extensive collaboration with the Bruker Daltonics in the near future on all aspects of mass spectrometry.

More information can be found on the website : www.bruker.com