Bruker Announces U.S. Collaborations for the Clinical Validation of Rapid, Highly Specific and Low-Cost Microbial Identification by Proteomic Fingerprinting Using its MALDI Biotyper

PHILADELPHIA--(Business Wire)--
At the 109th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, Bruker
Daltonics announced collaborations in the United States for the clinical
validation of its MALDI Biotyperworkflow for microorganism identification. The
MALDI Biotyper has recently obtained the IVD-CE Mark, and is currently for
Research Use Only (RUO) outside of the European Union.

The MALDI Biotyper is a rapid, mass spectrometry based platform for identifying
bacteria, yeasts and fungi. A high-quality, well-curated database with entries
from over 3,000 strains cover approximately 2,000 well-characterized microbial
species. Starting from a cultured colony, the identification is performed by
matching the measured protein fingerprint against the proprietary MALDI Biotyper
database. Including the database search, the automatic identification is
performed in minutes, multiple colonies can be spotted on a single target, and
about 30-60 identifications an hour can be performed for high throughput. The
MALDI Biotyper specificity of identification is very high and comparable to DNA
sequencing, false positive rates are near zero, mass spectrometry experience is
not required and the consumables cost per sample is very low.

In Europe, Bruker has installed over 40 MALDI Biotyper instruments in routine
laboratories for clinical microbiology, and the MALDI Biotyper is rapidly
becoming a new standard for robust, rapid microbial identification. Recently, in
the United States several collaborations have been initiated to validate the
MALDI Biotyper for clinical usage. The Microbiology Service of the NIH Clinical
Center in Bethesda, MD has performed extensive studies using the MALDI Biotyper
for identification of yeasts and bacteria. Their tests have shown advantages in
cost, speed, and accuracy compared with conventional biochemical testing and
gene sequencing, methods routinely used in their lab. The collaboration with the
NIH group is currently focused on expanding the database for identification of
mycobacteria, nocardia and filamentous yeasts.

In addition, larger scale clinical research studies are also underway at the
microbiology departments of two major U.S. medical school hospitals, and results
from those studies are expected in 2009.

ABOUT BRUKER DALTONICS

For more information about Bruker Daltonics and Bruker Corporation (NASDAQ:
BRKR), please visit www.bdal.com and www.bruker.com.

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Bruker Daltonics
Darwin Asa, Ph.D., +1 978-663-3660, ext. 1149
Life-Science Marketing Manager,
dja@bdal.com

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