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Critical Mass
Syagen takes the high-tech road to homeland security
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the TSA’s Acceptance Test process. Syage says yagen Technology Inc., based in Tustin, the process will be complete before the end that is a small firm contemplating California, of 2006 and that he doesn’t rule out the possia big future. The analytical instrumentability of having customer announcements for tion company was founded in 1996 the portal by year’s end. around a unique mass spectrometry (MS) technology that can perform high-speed Massively better molecular analysis, and that is now hitting its The Guardian serves as Syagen’s notice to the stride as the most efficient way of detecting homeland security market that it intends to be explosives, chemicals and biological agents in a major player. Mass spectrometry is the key to the homeland security field. Guardian’s uniqueness – and anticipated marSyagen’s core strengths are in R&D and engiket uptake. Syagen boasts that the Guardian feaneering products for manufacture. The comtures the lowest false negative and false positive pany’s character as a high-end research organization owes much to the character and history of its founder, Dr. Jack Syage. Syage has 20 years’ experience in developing research and commercial mass spectrometry. He received his PhD from Brown University, where he won several academic awards including Best Thesis, and he was a postdoctoral fellow at Caltech under Nobel Laureate Ahmed Zewail. He also holds several honorary academic positions with universities, academic journals and organizations around the world. It’s an impressive CV, but Syagen’s success rests on the transformation of research into real-world applications and products. Much of the company’s product line is geared towards use in the life sciences market. At present, Syage says, the bulk of Syagen’s commercial sales are OEM (original equipment manufacturer) products sold to major mass spectrometry companies. “But that’s quickly going to be eclipsed by our homeland security products, which we are really just launching. Syagen’s Guardian mass spectroscopy We have systems that we are demonstratportal is positioned for huge success ing around the world.” In this context, Syage’s words “really just rates, a key consideration for busy airports launching” is very much like the concept of deciding which systems to buy for crowded, “overnight success.” The Guardian explosives high-throughput passenger terminals. Mass trace detection (ETD) portal that the company spectrometry also gives the Guardian the broadlaunched last July was the product of several est range of detectable explosives compounds. years of research and development in collaboIn 2005, just before the launch of the ration with Sandia National Laboratories. At Guardian, the U.S. National Academy of press time the system was still going through Sciences reported that mass spectrometry had a
resolving power up to 10,000 times greater than that offered by ion mobility spectroscopy (IMS), the core of most competing systems. The Academy actually recommended making MS the core of ETD systems in aviation security. With the caution of a research scientist – and more savvy than most marketers – Syage prefers to avoid the 10,000X figure as probably hard for the market to accept. “You don’t have to be 10,000 times better to be a heck of a lot better,” he laughs. But whether Syagen says 10 or 10,000, having a mass spectroscopy portal in the final stages of premarket trials gives it a huge early-entrant advantage over any hopeful competitors. “The major mass spectrometry companies have ignored the homeland security market,” says Syage. “They’re more into the life sciences, general purpose lab and benchtop analytical systems and they haven’t gotten into the autonomous continuous monitoring systems, which is what you really need here. There are a couple of small players but I think it’s fair to say that we are the leading company in this area.” The key to MS is that the technology has extra levels of specificity besides the enhanced resolving power. IMS systems identify ions by measuring their drift times, which vary according to the molecular weight of the ion but which are susceptible to other factors as well. Mass spectrometry determines an ion’s molecular weight, which gives 99 percent accuracy of identification. Syagen has built in the further capability of removing even that one percent of doubt by allowing operators to break an ion apart and identify the fragments. If the fragments correspond to the molecular weight of the parent ion, identification can be made with 100 percent confidence. If they differ, portal operators can be certain the ion is something different. “We’ve built that into our systems,” says Syage. “But we’ve found that we don’t even need it. We can blow away the detection probability and false positive rate requirements with just that first line of mass spec resolution.” ■ A P R I L / M AY 2 0 0 6
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