Thermo Electron Corporation (NYSE: TMO) supports laboratory professionals with the most reliable products and services available. Thermo Electron makes mass spectrometry and chromatography equipment, among the most accurate and sensitive available, for analyzing a wide array of substances. The business is one of the world's leading manufacturers of these instruments, which separate, identify, and quantify natural products, chemical mixtures and biological samples. Thermo Electron and HighChem have created a strategic alliance focused on the development and marketing of highly sophisticated software solutions for the interpretation of complex mass spectral data. Under the terms of this agreement, Thermo Electron is the exclusive worldwide distributor of Mass Frontier software and HighChem is the owner of the copyright and intellectual properties of Mass Frontier software.

The Bio and Polymer Analysis research group, headed by Prof. Guenter Allmaier, at the Institute for Chemical Technologies and Analytics (Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria) and HighChem, Ltd. shares our interest in the development and evaluation of searchable libraries based on tandem and multistage spectra, obtained using modern desorption/ionisation techniques ESI, APPI, high vacuum and atmospheric pressure MALDI. Given the international standing of Prof. G. Allmaier and the strong interdisciplinary background of Dr. E. Pittenauer, a staff scientist of his research group, our intense collaboration promises to result in the creation of a unique, broadly applicable, high quality reference database, to assist in confident compound identification, in addition to the systematic study of the effects of experimental parameters on spectra appearance. To address the reproducibility of ion ratios in CID experiments, a standard spectra acquisition procedure along with a new search algorithm are being jointly examined. In addition to our low energy CID spectra database cooperation, we are exploring the possibilities of expanding our research to include the challenging field of the identification and spectral characterization of the human and other metabolomes.

The Mass Spectrometry Group at the Institute of Organic Chemistry, University of Vienna, Austria is a renowned research facility, which focuses on the development of computer methods such as substructure-based mass spectra libraries and multivariate evaluation of combined data of hyphenated chromatographic techniques (GC-MS, GC-FTIR). The research group of Prof. A. Nikiforov also works closely with industry through participation in projects regarding odor and aroma analysis, and complex matrix systems. The involvement of this research group in the extensive evaluation of Mass Frontier has helped to create a product which reflects the real needs of an analytical laboratory. Our cooperation resulted into number of scientific papers. The Chemometrics Group at the Institute of Analytical Chemistry, University of Vienna and HighChem, Ltd. have been investigating the possibilities of automatically identifying structural features from mass spectra.

The scientific activities of the Institute of Chemistry at the Slovak Academy of Sciences Bratislava, Slovakia are focused mainly on the chemistry and biochemistry of carbohydrates with a particular focus on the synthesis, structure determination and biological activity of saccharides and their conjugates. The mass spectrometry group, under the leadership of Dr. Vladimir Kovacik, focuses its research on the development of new strategies for the structural analysis of carbohydrates and glycoconjugates using various mass spectrometric techniques. The experience of this respected group in applying mass spectrometry to solve real analytical problems and the MS-informatics expertise of HighChem created the basis for a collaboration to find new ways of implementing Mass Frontier software in the interpretation of spectra of small, biologically related compounds. The aim of this collaboration is to create scientific papers that will focus on the application of computer oriented methods, developed by HighChem, to the structural analysis of biomolecules processed at the Slovak Academmy of Sciences.