The annual American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) conference is a gathering point for mass spectrometrists from around the world to share their experience about the science, instruments, and experiments designed to characterize everything from atoms to complex proteins. The 73^rd ASMS conference was held in Baltimore, MD, from June 1-2, 2025. 

A key component of the ASMS conference is the introduction of new products to the community. Many vendors take advantage of this gathering of MS enthusiasts to roll out their new products to this community. During the week in Baltimore, we selected the most interesting new products unveiled at the conference. They range across the spectrum in size, complexity, and function.

New MS instruments

There were several exciting new mass spectrometers announced at ASMS 2025. These were the most interesting to us: 

Agilent Technologies announced the new InifinityLab ProiQ Plus single quad MS designed specifically for liquid chromatography (LC) detection. It delivers high-end performance in a small footprint. With a mass range of two to 3,000 u and five times the sensitivity of previous products, it can support both routine and trace-level detection. The sensitivity enables instrument detection levels comparable to some triple quad instruments, and its peak shape and distribution is competitive with some time-of-flight instruments. According to Shane Tichy, AVP LC/MS R&D, “Agilent unveiled its most advanced quadrupole mass analyzer to date, designed for an exceptional mass range and high ion transmission. This powerful device delivers uncompromising precision across an expansive mass range, from low-mass small molecules to high-mass intact proteins, all packed into one of the smallest footprints in its class.”

Waters Corporation launched the Xevo^TM TQ Absolute XR, an even more sensitive and robust benchtop tandem quadrupole instrument. It has been developed for extreme robustness and increased sensitivity. “The Xevo TQ Absolute XR was engineered to tackle the persistent challenge of unplanned downtime in high-throughput labs. The innovative StepWave XR ion guide efficiently removes high-mass contaminants before they reach the mass analyzer,” said Rowan Moore, PhD, senior director, portfolio owner LC-MS Business, Waters Corporation. The robustness was increased by a factor of six and can deliver more than 20,000 injections with no drop in performance. Doug Stevens, principal scientist, Waters Corporation, describes the new instrument as “stubbornly robust.” The increased robustness means greater uptime for labs and significantly longer periods between taking the instrument down and breaking vacuum. 

In addition, the new instrument is up to 15 times as sensitive. Bharat Chandramouli, product director for North America at SGS and PFAS analysis expert, says, “We come back for robustness over sensitivity. We hope we don’t need to choose between them now.” The new instrument also delivers on lab sustainability with ½ the footprint, ½ the gas consumption, ½ the power use, ½ time from data to information. 

Bruker delivered three innovative new MS instruments during the conference, the timsOmni^TM MS, the timsMetabo^TM, and the timsUltra AIP. These instruments were designed to deliver higher annotation confidence across different MS applications. 

• The timsOmni^TM drives functional proteofrom sequencing and post-translational modification identification and localization. “The ‘Swiss army knife’ of the lab, the Bruker timsOmni™ heralds a new era of functional proteomics, setting the stage for landmark discoveries in ‘Proteoformics,’” explains Rohan Thakur, president of Bruker LSMS. The instrument brings enormous flexibility to electron and collision induced ion fragmentation and significant ion enrichment to MS^N experiments. It combines high sensitivity, powerful depth and speed, and accurate collisional cross sections.
• The timsMetabo^TM drives sensitivity for small molecule analysis, delivering 4D separations to archive a digital metabolome for each analyzed sample. It offers 10x improvement in 4D analyses for small molecules. Thakur says, “the timsMetabo^TM combines selective metabolite quantitation with TIMS-enhanced MS/MS and CCS measurements for absolute confidence in automated metabolite annotation.”
• The timsUltra AIP delivers ultra sensitivity and improved proteome depth at 300 Hz speeds. It is designed to improve bottom-up proteomics and can deliver 35 percent more peptide and 20 percent more protein coverage.

Thermo Fisher Scientific unveiled the Orbitrap Astral Zoom MS to drive increased throughput of discovery in biopharma. The instrument delivers 35 percent faster scan speeds, 40 percent greater throughput, and 50 percent better multiplexing. It can now deliver up to 300 samples/day to enable large-scale patient cohorts. According to Aaron Robitaille, director of marketing, “Customer feedback is critical to solve specific pain points, especially increased flexibility for more applications.” Robitaille emphasized that the keys to this new instrument are innovations driving “reliability, reproducibility, and robustness.”

MS accessories

Thermo Fisher Scientific announced the OptiSpray^TM Ion Source for electrospray ionization (ESI). It is an intelligent ESI interface that enables an easy approach to obtaining ESI data on a range of MS instruments for applications in proteomics, metabolomics, and lipidomics. It is a plug-and-play approach that democratizes ESI. According to Robitaille, “OptiSpray makes LC connection faster, easier, more beneficial. It enables people new to MS to use ESI easily and enables MS experts to spend more time doing science.” The smart source has memory and documents its usage. It also shares its metadata with the instrument software to be included in sample data files. 

MS^TM Solutions introduced its Plate Source for vacuum ionization. It is a simple, sensitive, direct, and portable approach to obtaining MS data. According to Sarah Trimpin, CEO, the new plate source is “really simple and robust. High school students can use it immediately.” In addition, they offer an automated version that runs from a cell phone.

Bruker announced the acquisition of both Recipe and Biocrates Life Sciences. These acquisitions enable Bruker to offer a large number of kits and assays designed for clinical and metabolite applications. “Bruker Applied MS presented the integration of RECIPE’s ClinMass^® and ClinDART^® assay kits with Bruker’s EVOQ^® DART-TQ⁺ system. The novel chromatography-free approach connected to DART delivers practical, high-performance solutions with reduced solvent consumption for routine analytical challenges,” according to Jeffrey Zonderman, senior vice president, Bruker Applied Mass Spectrometry.

Spectroscopy instruments

BrightSpec launched their new molecular rotational resonance (MRR) spectroscopy instrument. Despite all the power of MS instruments, they can’t complete every characterization challenge. The MRR uses rotational spectroscopy to provide structural determination of gas phase molecules. MRR is ideal for distinguishing structurally similar compounds, like isomers, and can do it with ppm sensitivity. MRR can deliver relative quantitation from just the most intense peaks and doesn’t require reference standards. Scientists can build theoretical spectra to match against. According to Walter Colsman, CEO, the greatest strength of MRR is “the ability to discern structurally similar compounds with high confidence.”

The performance of these new mass spectrometers is amazing. They enable deep analysis of molecules, cells, and materials. It is an exciting time to be a mass spectrometrist and have access to the tools and accessories required to make important scientific discoveries.