Thermo Fisher Scientific has unveiled a new suite of analytical instruments and software at the 2025 American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) conference in Baltimore, Maryland. These innovations aim to accelerate breakthroughs in biopharmaceutical discovery, translational omics, and environmental safety research.

Dan Shine, senior vice president and president of analytical instruments at Thermo Fisher Scientific, said: “By combining higher-performing instruments with technology that support innovative, end-to-end workflows, we’re helping researchers expedite discoveries that will impact human health, drug development and environmental sustainability.”

Among the new instruments is the Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Astral Zoom mass spectrometer, which builds on the success of the award-winning Orbitrap Astral MS. It offers 35% faster scan speeds, 40% higher throughput, and 50% expanded multiplexing capabilities. These improvements drastically reduce analysis timelines—for example, processing 6,000 research samples can now take 100 days instead of 1,000, significantly accelerating research in complex diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer.

Jesper Olsen, professor at the University of Copenhagen, praised the performance of the Orbitrap Astral Zoom MS.

He said: “We can now routinely analyze 300 human proteomes per day. This allows us to do very detailed systems biology studies, where we get sufficient coverage of close to 8,000 proteins and more than 100,000 peptides across all the samples.”

The Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Excedion Pro MS introduces EASY-Electron-transfer dissociation (EASY-ETD) technology, which enhances the study of protein structures and sequences by breaking apart complex molecules. This capability supports developments in biopharma, proteomics, and metabolomics research, helping scientists better understand therapeutics such as monoclonal antibodies.

Andrew Mahan, associate director at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine, noted the value of these advancements, he said: “Initial data shows that high spectral acquisition rate of EASY-ETD results in deeper protein sequence coverage, improved post-translational modification characterization, detection of large aggregate impurities, and richer fragmentation patterns for confident disulfide linkage assignments. These improvements provide immediate value to our biotechnology work and will serve as our next-generation platform.”

To complement the instruments, Thermo Fisher introduced OptiSpray technology, an automated system that physically connects liquid chromatography to mass spectrometry. By simplifying adjustments, it saves time and improves reproducibility across columns, instruments, and operators. OptiSpray is compatible with the company’s Orbitrap and Stellar mass spectrometers as well as the Vanquish Neo UHPLC System, enhancing ease of use in MS-based proteomics.

The event also featured Olink’s Proximity Extension Assay technology and Insight software platform, which enhance proteome coverage by detecting low-abundance proteins. These tools complement mass spectrometry methods and aid biomarker discovery and validation, especially in human samples like plasma.

On the software side, Thermo Fisher released enhancements designed to boost lab productivity. Chromeleon 7.4 software offers a scalable, networked platform supporting targeted quantitative MS workflows with centralized data storage and GMP compliance, enabling remote control and monitoring of instruments.

Proteome Discoverer 3.3 software now supports targeted proteomics data and automated fraction processing, streamlining workflows with advanced automation and data acquisition techniques. The Compound Discoverer 3.5 update includes improved lipid application support and integrates Mass Frontier 8.1 software for enhanced in-silico fragmentation prediction, aiding the transition from discovery to screening in both LC/MS and GC/MS workflows.