Proteome Systems wins technology innovation award

Proteome Systems has won a prestigious 2005 Frost and Sullivan Technology Innovation Award for its ingenious Chemical Inkjet Printer (ChIP).

The Sydney proteomics platform technology company developed the ChIP technology for protein identification in collaboration with its Japanese partner Shimadzu.

Frost and Sullivan awards are made to companies that have demonstrated technological superiority in their market niches.

Proteome's chief scientific office, Dr Andrew Gooley, said, "No office runs without a printer and it was our vision that no biochemistry laboratory will run without a chemical inkjet printer.

"With the ChIP we have swapped the ink in the inkjet printer for chemical and biochemical reagents used in biochemistry."

Gooley said the ChIP device incorporates a scanner that captures a digital image of the substrate carrying the protein samples -- it might be a membrane dotted with proteins, a 2-D electrophoresis gel, or a protein microarray.

The digital image then provides the two-dimensional coordinates to align the the protein sample with the printer nozzle, which then projects picolitre quantities of reagents onto the protein samples.

Gooley said the ChIP is out in the marketplace, and selling slowly, but is beginning to attract a lot of interest.

Proteome also announced today it had appointed the Sage Healthcare Group in the US to develop partnering deals for the company's portfolio of technology and informatics products.