Thermo Fisher Scientific has introduced its Orbitrap Astral Zoom mass spectrometer at ASMS 2025. The company states the new system can reduce the processing time for large-scale studies, such as analyzing 6,000 research samples, from 1,000 days down to approximately 100. The system is a successor to the company’s R&D 100 award-winning Orbitrap Astral MS, which launched in 2023.
“The way to think about [the Orbitrap Astral Zoom], it can do everything that the Orbitrap Astral can do, and more, but it can also do everything that the Orbitrap Astral can do, and do it better – better meaning better performance, faster speed, more sensitivity,” explained Aaron Robitaille, Director of Marketing, Mass Spectrometry at Thermo Fisher Scientific, in an interview. This enhanced capability is exemplified by an increase in sample throughput, with Robitaille noting, “we can go from 180 samples per day on the previous Orbitrap Astral; now we can go up to 300 samples per day.”
One early adopter of the Orbitrap Astral Zoom, Yu‑Ju Chen, Ph.D., distinguished research fellow at Academia Sinica, underscored the real-world impact of this acceleration: “The Orbitrap Zoom mass spectrometer will be a paradigm shift for proteomic technology to inspire a new strategy for early detection and precision oncology.” The theme of accelerating scientific output was echoed by Robitaille, who emphasized that such advancements are “truly helping customers publish faster with higher quality results, and doing that all in less time.”
We can shorten the analysis time for 6,000 patient research samples from 1,000 days to 100 days. —Yu‑Ju Chen, Ph.D.
Beyond high-throughput proteomics, the Orbitrap Astral Zoom’s enhanced capabilities are also opening up new possibilities in fields like exposomics, the science of measuring environmental exposures in biological systems. Gary Patti, Ph.D., from Washington University in St. Louis, highlighted the promise of the Orbitrap Astral platform (which the Astral Zoom builds upon) for metabolomics in particular: “It will be particularly important for characterizing exposure chemicals, such as drugs and certain food components,” he said.
Similarly, for agricultural science, Jennifer Geddes-McAlister, Ph.D., Canada Research Chair at the University of Guelph, pointed to its potential in plant proteomics: “With improved depth of coverage for low abundance, these peptides provide new biological insights into mechanisms driving fungal virulence and antifungal resistance.”
The development of the Orbitrap Astral Zoom reflects Thermo Fisher’s close collaboration with the scientific community. Pushkin Pant, Vice‑President and General Manager of Life‑Sciences Mass Spectrometry at Thermo Fisher, elaborated on this approach: “We are always pushing the limits of our technology, and our customers are pushing the limits of scientific research… we are actively looking at what are the emerging needs, right, to push the boundaries of science, and we are marrying that to what are we doing to push the boundaries of technology.”
