Toxicology Laboratory At UC San Diego School Of Medicine Joins Waters Center Of Innovation Program

Laboratory Devoted to Improving the Quality of Clinical Testing

MILFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--At a ceremony at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) officially welcomed the university’s Center for Advanced Laboratory Medicine into the Waters Centers of Innovation (COI) Program. Under the direction of Professor Robert Fitzgerald, Director of Toxicology and Associate Director of Clinical Chemistry, the laboratory develops, validates and implements liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) diagnostic tests, including broad spectrum screens for drugs of abuse, therapeutic drug monitoring and vitamin D testing.

“We are very excited that Waters Corporation has recognized our department’s work in developing mass spectrometry-based tests for the clinical laboratory”

“We are very excited that Waters Corporation has recognized our department’s work in developing mass spectrometry-based tests for the clinical laboratory,” said Dr. Steven L. Gonias, Chair of the Department of Pathology in the UC San Diego School of Medicine and Chief of Pathology, at UC San Diego Health. “Dr. Fitzgerald and Dr. David Herold of the UC San Diego School of Medicine have contributed landmark studies focused on improving the accuracy of diagnostic tests by applying mass spectrometry in new and innovative ways. The potential to further improve patient care through the expanded use of mass spectrometry is indeed impressive.”

Dr. Fitzgerald is one of the world’s foremost experts in the use of mass spectrometry for the analysis of testosterone and other biologically important compounds. His laboratory is also a major research center for studying cardiac biomarkers in diagnosing disease and monitoring therapeutic interventions. In his role, Dr. Fitzgerald oversees the activities of three clinical laboratories for UC San Diego Health which together perform more than 4.5 million assays annually. Dr. Fitzgerald’s laboratory utilizes several Waters tandem quadrupole and quadrupole time of flight mass spectrometers, including the Xevo^® TQ-S, Xevo G2 QTof™ and ACQUITY^® TQD.

“Waters has been an outstanding partner for us and has fully supported us with robust instrumentation and solid technical support,” Dr. Fitzgerald said. “I am particularly excited about the aspect of our collaboration with Waters that allows us to train the next generation of leaders in clinical chemistry, a field in which mass spectrometry is becoming increasingly important.”

“It’s a pleasure to welcome the UC San Diego School of Medicine into our COI Program. Largely due to the efforts of scientists like Dr. Fitzgerald and his colleagues, the value of LC and MS in the clinical laboratory has been clearly proven and is having lasting benefits in the clinic,” said Eric Fotheringham, Director of the Waters Centers of Innovation Program.

In 2013, Waters endowed a postdoctoral Clinical Chemistry Fellowship at UC San Diego. The two-year program trains Fellows in classical clinical chemistry, laboratory administration and research practices to prepare them for directorship positions at medical schools or hospital-based clinical chemistry laboratories.

To salute the work of Prof. Fitzgerald and the Center for Advanced Laboratory Medicine, Waters Corporation is sponsoring a clinical science symposium. Titled Mass Spectrometry in the Modern Clinical Laboratory, the event features presentations by noted experts in clinical chemistry including Marilyn Huestis of the University of Maryland Baltimore School of Medicine; Andy Hoofnagle of the University of Washington; Kara Lynch of the University of California, San Francisco; Gary Siuzdak of the Scripps Center for Metabolomics; Frederick Strathman of the ARUP Institute for Clinical and Experimental Pathology; Judy Stone of UC San Diego; and Arash Zarrine-Afsar of the University of Toronto.

About the Center for Advanced Laboratory Medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine

The UC San Diego School of Medicine’s Center for Advanced Laboratory Medicine (CALM) houses the Department of Pathology’s Division of Laboratory Medicine. The facility features state-of-the-art technologies used in diagnostic medicine and pathology to support patient care and inquiry into emerging fields, such as personalized medicine, genomics, clinical proteomics and cell therapy.

About Waters Centers of Innovation Program

Established in 2010, Waters Centers of Innovation Program recognizes accomplished scientists and their institutions for research in the fields of the health sciences, pharmaceuticals, chemical materials, food and environmental chemistry, mass spectrometry and separations science. By partnering with leading scientists and connecting them with experts in mass spectrometry and separations science, Waters endeavors to bring about inspired thinking that converts ideas into reality.

The participants in the Waters Centers of Innovation Program include: Professor Ganesh Anand, National University of Singapore; Professor Luiz Claudio Cameron, UniRio, Brazil; Professor David Clemmer, Indiana University; Professor Daniel Tsun-Yee Chiu, Chang Gung University; Dr. Joseph Dalluge, University of Minnesota; Dr. Petur Weihe Dalsgaard, University of Copenhagen; Professor Marcos Eberlin, University of Campinas, Brazil; Professor Chris Elliott, Queen’s University Belfast; Professor John Engen, Northeastern University; Prof. Rob Fitzgerald, University of California – San Diego; Professor Albert J. Fornace, Jr., Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center; Professor David Goodlett and Dr. Maureen Kane, University of Maryland; Professor De-an Guo, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica; Dr. Frank Gonzalez, National Cancer Institute; Prof. Ron Heeren, Maastricht University; Prof. Sunghwan Kim, Kyungpook National University, Seoul, Korea; Dr. Carlo R. Largiadèr, Dr. Jean-Francois DuFour and Dr. Martin Fiedler, Inselspital University Hospital, Bern, Switzerland; Professor Julie Leary, University of California – Davis; Professor Amit Kumar Mandal, St. John’s Research Institute, Bangalore, India; Professor John McLean, Vanderbilt University; Professor Arthur Moseley, Duke University; Professor Jeremy Nicholson, Imperial College London; Dr. Devin Peterson, University of Minnesota; Associate Professor Jessica Prenni, Colorado State University; Dr. Serge Rezzi, Nestle Institute of Health Sciences; Dr. Ryan Rodgers, Future Fuels Institute, Florida State University; Professor Pauline Rudd, National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training; Professor James Scrivens, University of Warwick; Professor Vladimir Shulaev, University of North Texas; Dr. Norman Smith, Kings College London; Professor Sarah Trimpin, Wayne State University; Professor Bert van Bavel, NIVA, Oslo, Norway; Caroline West and Eric Lesselier, University of Orleans, Orleans, France; and Prof. Vicki Wysocki, The Ohio State University.

About Waters Corporation (www.waters.com)

Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) develops and manufactures advanced analytical and material science technologies for laboratory dependent organizations. For more than 50 years, the company has pioneered a connected portfolio of separations science, laboratory information management, mass spectrometry and thermal analysis systems.

Waters, ACQUITY, UltraPerformance LC, QTof and Xevo are trademarks of Waters Corporation.