Target Discovery launches UltraTrol

Target Discovery, a discovery biology company from Palo Alto, CA, has launched its UltraTrol suite of dynamic pre-coat reagents for capillary and microchannel electrophoresis.

UltraTrol dynamic pre-coat products facilitate direct integration of capillary electrophoresis (CE) with mass spectrometry (MS), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and other downstream analytical methods. The reagents provide life science and other researchers excellent levels of control over resolution, reproducibility and productivity in CE.

While CE has several appealing advantages over other analytical separations methods, such as speed, resolution capacity, and minimal sample dilution, it has historically struggled with limitations caused by lack of control over electro-osmotic force and flow (EOF), a natural occurrence in CE separations. Target Discovery provides the advanced technology to fully leverage these capabilities. The earlier launch of Target Discovery's EOTrol product line introduced the ability to control precisely both the magnitude and direction of EOF, and thus to access previously unobtainable CE resolution, reproducibility and throughput capabilities, vastly increasing the value and popularity of CE. With the introduction of UltraTrol, these new benefits can now be directly coupled with other analytical methods.

The UltraTrol and EOTrol suite of products address difficult separation hurdles to overcome long-standing technical limitations in biochemical separation and identification. These products provide researchers with the tools to obtain precise, reproducible separations as well as quantitation of challenging biochemical mixtures.

'These products are very powerful technologies that solve fundamental separation issues and are now improving scientific research and diagnostic product capabilities in important areas previously considered inaccessible,' said Jeffrey Peterson, CEO of Target Discovery. 'EOTrol was named one of the top five products featured at Pittcon 2004, and we are convinced that the extension of this technology into UltraTrol dynamic pre-coat reagents will have a profound impact on life science research, on disease diagnosis and staging, and broadly upon the role of capillary electrophoresis in analytical chemistry. In Target Discovery's internal discovery programs, we have achieved exceptional reliability and throughput by using UltraTrol and EOTrol to separate and quantify alpha 1-antitrypsin isoforms, critical protein biomarkers for emphysema, liver disorders, and Alzheimer's disease.'

The UltraTrol dynamic pre-coating reagents are compatible with any capillary or microfluidic electrophoresis systems. They are pH and buffer insensitive, providing selectable and consistent controlled levels and directions of electroosmotic flow across a wide range of separation conditions. Because the reagents are applied as a pre-coating during CE separations they do not elute with the sample. This facilitates hybrid CE separations coupled with the use of a wider range of analysis and detection options, such as mass spectrometry, HPLC and other analytical platforms.