Agilent Technologies and Baylor College of Medicine has joined hands to advance research and training in the field of metabolomics. They have opened the Agilent Technologies Mass Spectrometry Center of Excellence as part of the Alkek Center for Molecular Discovery and the Baylor College of Medicine Core Laboratory in the college's department of molecular and cellular biology.

"Our collaborative relationship with Baylor and our shared investment in this new center will foster development of advanced research tools and new applications in metabolomics and integrated biology," said Mr Carl Raimond, Agilent vice president of Sales and Field Operations, Americas Life Sciences.

"The growing significance of metabolomics, not only in lifescience research but in many application spaces, has resulted in the need for more analytical capabilities," said Dr Arun Sreekumar, co-director of the Alkek Center. He added, "Baylor and Agilent have identified several areas of mutual interest-metabolomics, lipidomics, clinical research, disease research-where we believe we can make real progress together."

Agilent is equipping the new center with two systems configured for metabolomics: an Agilent 6495 triple quadrupole LC/MS system and an Agilent 6550 iFunnel quadrupole time-of-flight LC/MS system with a switchable GC APCI interface. The systems include Mass Hunter software for qualitative and quantitative analysis as well as Mass Profiler Professional with Pathway Architect for bioinformatics and integrated multi-omic analysis.

Both Baylor and Agilent will use the equipment collaboratively to analyse samples, conduct research and train students.