Advanced mass spectrometry technique breaks free from specialist hardware
Researchers at the University of Warwick and spinout company Verdel Instruments have successfully demonstrated two-dimensional mass spectrometry (2DMS) on a benchtop instrument, making this powerful technique ...
Researchers at the University of Warwick and spinout company Verdel Instruments have successfully demonstrated two-dimensional mass spectrometry (2DMS) on a benchtop instrument, making this powerful technique practical and affordable for everyday laboratory use.
Modern mass spectrometry workflows are built to reduce complexity before measurement: Chromatography separates, acquisition methods filter and processing pipelines simplify. These steps are essential, but they come at a cost—information is lost, often without the analyst knowing what's missing.
"The field has long recognized the power of 2DMS, but it has simply not been accessible—only the best-funded centers could afford the specialist hardware," said Tim Wilson, CEO of Verdel Instruments. "Our technology makes 2DMS possible on benchtop instruments, which are widely available. Any lab can now access this powerful technique."
In their paper, published in Analytical Chemistry, the Verdel/Warwick team provides the first demonstration of 2DMS on a commercially available quadrupole time-of-flight (Q-TOF) instrument, using an upgrade kit. They call this Q-2DMS, and the paper shows how it can be used to obtain high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry data from complex mixtures without the need for chromatographic separation or mass filtering.
The Q-2DMS method works by giving each analyte a unique frequency signature based on its mass-to-charge ratio. When these break apart during analysis, the fragments formed retain this signature, allowing a mathematical decoding process to instantly reveal which fragments came from which analytes.
What would normally be an unusable mess of signals becomes an ordered series of mass spectra similar to those obtained using conventional separation and filtering techniques, but now including information that is often lost.
The recently published paper shows that Q-2DMS preserved up to tenfold more usable spectral information when analyzing closely related or near-isobaric compounds.
The technique demonstrated in the paper could support work across several research areas, including:
- Health care, for faster identification of unexpected drug metabolites, enabling more personalized treatment.
- Environmental safety, as any laboratory can now directly detect emerging contaminants (PFAS) without pre-separation, accelerating water safety monitoring.
- Drug control, for rapid characterization of novel synthetic drugs and designer compounds.
- Drug development, for discovery of unanticipated reaction products and impurities.
Dr. Shum Prakash, business development manager at Warwick Innovations, said, "Years of world-leading research have led to Warwick spinout Verdel Instruments launching Q-2DMS. It combines high-resolution, easy-to-use readouts with a complete timestamp of each sample, so researchers can revisit the data later without needing the original sample, which may have degraded."
"What excites us most is what we don't yet know," concludes Peter O'Connor, professor of chemistry at the University of Warwick and senior author of the paper. "By making this technique accessible, we're enabling scientists worldwide to ask questions they couldn't ask before, and to find answers they weren't necessarily looking for."
Publication details
Steven Wright et al, Chromatography-Free Analysis of Mixtures Using a Two-Dimensional Mass Spectrometry (2DMS)-Enabled Quadrupole Time-of-Flight (QToF) Analyzer, Analytical Chemistry (2026). DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.6c00486
Who's behind this story?
BA art history, MA material culture. Former museum editor, paramedic, and transplant coordinator. Editing for Science X since 2021. Full profile →
Master's in physics with research experience. Long-time science news enthusiast. Plays key role in Science X's editorial success. Full profile →
Citation: Advanced mass spectrometry technique breaks free from specialist hardware (2026, July 29) retrieved 30 July 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-07-advanced-mass-spectrometry-technique-free.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.