Bruker Daltonics today announced that ARUP Laboratories (a reference laboratory owned by the University of Utah) has selected and installed the Bruker MALDI Biotyper system as their next-generation rapid microbial identification system. The MALDI Biotyper has obtained the IVD-CE Mark, and is currently for Research Use Only (RUO) outside of the European Union. The MALDI Biotyper is a MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry based platform for rapidly identifying bacteria, yeasts and fungi. Its carefully curated database includes quality-controlled entries of over 3,700 strains from about 2,000 well-characterized microbial species.
Starting from a cultured colony, identification is performed by matching the measured protein fingerprint against the proprietary MALDI Biotyper database. Including the database search, automatic identification can be performed in minutes. Multiple colonies can be spotted on a single target, and about 30-60 identifications can be performed every hour. The MALDI Biotyper offers rapid time-to-result, high specificity, very low false positive rates, low operational costs, and low technical barriers for new operators. Bruker has installed over 150 MALDI Biotyper systems worldwide in routine laboratories for microbiology, and the MALDI Biotyper is rapidly becoming a new standard for robust, rapid microbial identification. ARUP plans to use the MALDI Biotyper for microbial identifications currently performed by DNA sequencing, and expects to see improvements in time to result, workflow and consumables costs. ARUP is also investigating the use of the MALDI Biotyper to replace phenotypic methods for identification, and plans to collaborate with Bruker to develop additional tests on the MALDI Biotyper.