Thought leader recipient

Agilent Technologies (Santa Clara, California, USA) has announced the recipients of its latest Thought Leader award: Dr Jens Frisvad and the centre for microbial biotechnology in the department of systems biology at the Technical University of Denmark.

The centre is working to create a targeted metabolomics approach for thousands of compounds produced by aspergillus, penicillium and fusarium – filamentous moulds that frequently contaminate food and can lead to illness. Scientists will use mutable internal standards to calibrate changes in both chromatographic retention and mass-spec sensitivity in order to compare extracts over many years.

The award will provide the lab with use of a LC-QTOF system for discovery metabolomics, as well as a LC-QQQ system for target screening. Agilent will thereby be supporting research in food safety, specifically the metabolomics of mycotoxins (toxins made by mould).

Dr Frisvad commented, “Our research is aimed at showing the impact that analysis of LC-QTOF and LC-QQQ data can have on understanding the metabolomics of mycotoxins. We are extremely pleased that Agilent is helping us continue this important food-safety research.”

Mike McMullen, president of Agilent’s chemical analysis group, said, “Our support of the work being done at the centre for microbial biotechnology closely aligns with a major initiative at Agilent: providing tools and methods that help test the global food supply. By providing instruments to Dr Frisvad and his team, we continue Agilent’s long history of helping create innovative ways to improve food safety.”

For more information please visit www.agilent.comThis story originally appeared in The Column. Click here to view that issue.