Waters Collaborates with Singapore’s Bioprocessing Technology Institute to Develop New Strategies to Identify Cancer Markers and Probe Cancer Biology

Waters Corporation have announced a joint effort with the Bioprocessing Technology Institute (BTI), a research institute within Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), to develop new methods of finding cancer markers and elucidating glycosylation pathways that could pave the way for new therapeutic strategies.

As part of the research collaboration, Waters and BTI will develop a glycosphingolipid (GSL) head group database containing Glucose Unit (GU) retention times and collision cross-section (CCS) values in an effort to compile an experimental library for disease-related GSL glycans together with a glycan/MS spectral library.

“Collaborating with Waters will enable BTI to apply its expertise in glycomics to develop analytical methods and a library of information on GSLs that doesn’t yet exist today. This will allow us to probe for potential clinical markers and to provide insights into disease progression and regression following therapeutic intervention. We anticipate our science will advance human health while at the same time address some of the needs of the biopharmaceutical industry,” said scientific lead Dr Susanto Woen, Research Scientist, BTI. “The partnership also allows us to be part of an international glycomics research network pioneering technologies required to determine the potential association between GSL glycosylation and any phenotypic/genotypic traits in disease or disease states.”

“By taking our partnership to a new level, we will empower BTI to further develop novel analytical methods and establish a comprehensive experimental glycan spectral library for cancer glycobiology focusing on glycosphingolipids. Together, we want to advance methods to study GSL glycosylation in cancer classification and biomarker discovery,” said Dr Jose Castro-Perez, Director – Health Sciences Marketing, Waters Corporation.

First established in 2014, the collaborative relationship with BTI initially focused on evaluating the performance of a new N-linked glycan label aimed at biopharmaceutical applications, the GlycoWorks™ RapiFluor-MS™ Glycan Kit, and its complete workflow – from sample preparation to analysis – for glycosylation profiling.