The deal combines the university's research experience with Thermo Fisher's sample preparation, liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, and data interpretation software offerings, it said.

The company also announced updates to its analytical software for laboratory tasks ranging from biotherapeutic characterization and metabolomics to forensic analysis. The updates include:

• Thermo Scientific FreeStyle 1.8 SP1, which improves workflows for all of the company's mass spectrometry devices
• Thermo Scientific BioPharma Finder 4.1, which characterizes both protein and oligonucleotide-based biotherapeutics
• Thermo Scientific Xcalibur 4.5, which acquires data for small molecule workflows

In addition, Thermo Fisher launched a new flow cytometer with imaging capability.

The Invitrogen Attune CytPix flow cytometer allows researchers to gather fluorescent data and high-resolution images with a high-speed camera, enabling them "to gather additional information about their cells and the sample quality while running flow cytometry experiments," the company said.

The device is for research use only, according to the company.