VU researchers develop research equipment to identify contaminants in water

Water, comprising over 70% of our planet, is the source of all life. The presence of emerging contaminants in our water, including pharmaceuticals, pose serious health and environmental risks, such as DNA damage, reproductive issues, and cancer. New equipment to detect these contaminants developed by VU researchers has been sold to other research groups all over the world. Now the researchers are taking the next step, together with IXA, to expand sales to water companies worldwide as well as other applications such as food and drug discovery research.

Research equipment going to market

The innovative equipment, under the name of FractionMate, was developed by Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam researchers Marja Lamoree and Jeroen Kool and sold to others in their network via the VU ‘webstore’ set-up by the beta-workshops: TEC4SCIENCE. FractioMate is suitable for detecting bioactive substances (such as endocrine disrupting, carcinogenic or other toxic substances) in drinking water. In addition, it can be used to identify bioactive substances in food testing and drug discovery research. Currently the equipment has already been taken into use by water companies in the Netherlands.

Doing more with your in-house technology and equipment?

IXA has been closely involved in the connection with external companies amongst others to set-up a marketing campaign for FractioMate. One of the marketing tools is a promotional film posted on you-tube and presented by Mátyás Bittenbinder, who recently got his PhD degree and can be seen frequently on Dutch TV covering biological subjects.

Did your research group develop equipment which you think might be interesting for others and you would like to sell? You are welcome to contact IXA Business Developer Peter Cirkel via p.a.cirkel@vu.nl.

About the technology of FractionMate

The key innovation of this equipment is that it avoids lengthy effect directed analyses studies, which are currently used to detect bio-active contaminants. Compounds in a sample are separated with liquid chromatography (LC). Subsequently, the eluent is split where one part is transferred by means of the innovative FractioMate spotting technology to a high-resolution bioassay (e.g. 96 or 384 well mammalian or yeast-based cellular format) to test the biological (e.g. genotoxic or endocrine disruptive) activity of eluting compounds. The other part is directed to a mass spectrometer. Peak shapes from ‘reconstructed bioassay chromatograms’ using the individually collected and bioassayed fractions are efficiently correlated to compound accurate masses from the parallel obtained MS data (for instance from the Bruker timsTOF Pro).

• Please find more information about FractioMate at Fractiomate.com