"which mass spectrometer should I buy" has been asked of the ABRF list a
number of times. It is very difficult to get an objective answer from
anyone but some of the the big pharma labs where they may have dozens on
instruments in a single lab and can genuinely "compare apples with apples".
In other cases, like most academic labs, including mine, we just have one
or two flavors of instrument and generally get by no matter what their
shortcomings.
In my limited experience, once you have established that the instruments
under consideration will do the job (and I'm sure the two you mention will
come very close to each other) there are two very important non-instrument
parameters you need to consider, support and ease of instrument use,
especially software.
On the first matter, ask for the names of of instrument owners in your area
(not outside since service can vary considerably from region to region) and
give them a call and ask them specifically about the level of service they
obtain. Service, or the lack of it, will be the issue that concerns you
most for years to come, best to get it right now.
The second issue, operating software, has been the deciding factor in both
my MS purchases. The last thing you need is an instrument like a MALDI that
can only be run by the select few who understand the software. These are
the sort of instruments where the whole department/institute should be able
to walk up to and run a sample. Here's a good test. Get someone from your
lab, preferably someone who might not be the most computer savvy person you
have around (the less savvy the better), and ask the companies to
demonstrate the instruments to this person then ask that person which
instrument they prefer.
On the subject of software, it is also useful to ask each company for the
names of labs for whom they have made custom software developments, some
companies are very responsive to customer demands, others are notoriously
unresponsive. It might not be the sort of thing you are thinking about now
but is a good indicator of general company attitudes to their customers.
Good luck....Ken
> Dear ABRFers
> we are setting up a proteomic platform and in order to analyse
> proteins from 2D gels by mass spectrometry we planned to buy a MALDI
> instrument.
> We have taken into consideration to different MALDI: Micromass TOF
> Spec 2E (with time-lag-focusing, which corresponds to delayed
> extraction) and Perseptive biosystems Voyager DE-PRO (benchtop version
> of DE-STR).
> We have to decide which one is the best for our purpose, but this task
> seems extremely difficult because there are a lot of things to
> consider and we are not experts in mass spectrometry field.
>
> Any advise out there?
>
> Thank you
> Barbara
>
> Barbara Valsasina
> Pharmacia & Upjohn
> Discovery research oncology
> Nerviano MI
> Italy
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Ken I. Mitchelhill
The John Holt Protein Structure Laboratory
St. Vincent's Institute of Medical Research
41 Victoria Parade
Fitzroy 3065 Victoria
AUSTRALIA
Telephone: 61-3-9288 2480
Facsimile: 61-3-9416 2676
Email: k.mitchelhill@medicine.unimelb.edu.au
Laboratory: http://www.medstv.unimelb.edu.au/WWWDOCS/SVIMRdocs/JHPSL.html
ABRF: http://www.abrf.org
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