The John Curtin School of Medical Research has jumped ahead of its international peers and bought the first Benchtop Electrophoresis Separator in the world.

Known as the MF10, the machine is used for protein separation and will be particularly useful in proteomics research. Proteomics is a rapidly expanding research field where researchers identify proteins and/or modified proteins that can be linked to the development of diseases.

"One of the great challenges in this field is to isolate a protein of interest from a concoction of many other biomolecules," Stephanie Palmer, Manager of the ACRF Biomolecular Resource Facility said.

"Current proteomics research tools can only separate proteins via their 'charge' and only allow researchers to analyse low-abundance proteins that can be easily separated from high-abundance proteins.

"The MF10 is a unique instrument as it is the only machine that can perform small scale pre-fractionation, separating samples into several smaller groups of proteins based on 'charge' and 'size'."

"MF10 methodology is also less destructive than traditional protein separations, facilitating downstream analysis"

The MF10 has been developed by NuSep, an Australian-owned company.

The purchase was funded by a grant for Health and Medical Research Equipment from ANU and was launched at JCSMR on Monday 26 May.

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