Verdel Instruments raises funds for new mass spec approach

Verdel Instruments, a spin-off from the University of Warwick, has raised more than $290,000 in seed funding from Longwall Ventures and Innovate UK, a government agency. The funding will help commercialize a drug- and food-testing technology that the firm describes as 2-dimensional mass spectrometry (2DMS). The technology uses electrical pulses and a laser to manipulate ions and then measures them in a time-of-flight mass analyzer. Verdel says 2DMS can provide structural data more quickly and with better specificity and sensitivity than traditional chromatography/MS techniques.