ESA Receives 2008 Frost & Sullivan North American Technology Innovation Award for Development of Integrated Metabolomi...( CHELMSFORD Mass. Sept. 3 /- ESA B...)

CHELMSFORD, Mass., Sept. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- ESA Biosciences, a Magellan Biosciences company and leader in novel HPLC detection systems that improve results for pharmaceutical development and QA/QC, life science, and analytical-chemistry customers worldwide, announced that it has received the 2008 Frost & Sullivan North American Technology Innovation Award in the field of integrated metabolomics systems. Frost & Sullivan will present the award to ESA's Vice President of HPLC Products and Services, Dr. Ian Acworth, at the 2008 Growth Excellence Awards banquet on September 16, 2008, in San Francisco, California.

Metabolites are an organism's low-molecular-weight molecules (e.g., amino acids, peptides, lipids, carbohydrates) -- biochemical byproducts that result from catabolism (breakdown), anabolism (build up), and from gut fauna and flora. By understanding and detecting metabolic differences between normal and diseased states, researchers hope to provide earlier and more-precise diagnosis and prevention. In drug discovery and development, metabolomics may help scientists to understand how and when drugs work, interact, and cause side effects.

According to Frost & Sullivan Senior Research Analyst, Sandhya Kamath, ESA is being honored for its leadership in developing an integrated platform based on HPLC with electrochemical-array detection, alone, or in parallel with mass spectrometry. "ESA's technical innovations in electrochemical cell design and optimized, applications-focused systems are bringing the great benefits of electrochemistry (it is a highly selective and sensitive technique) to metabolomics -- an exciting new discipline producing breakthroughs in science. For example, a Coulochem(R) III system equipped with ESA's new Boron Doped Diamond cell enables life-science researchers to measure difficult-to-analyze molecules like thiols and disulfides, which are critical to a variety of biologically and clinically important processes -- from oxid
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