MS3 operates from the Ruakura Research Centre in Hamilton, alongside New Zealand’s agricultural research community. It is a working analytical laboratory at a real scale — not a facility that exists in a stock photograph.
Analytical capability
What each instrument does, in plain English, and the kind of question it answers.
High-resolution mass spectrometry
Measures the mass of molecules precisely enough to tell apart compounds that a simpler instrument would report as identical.
Used for: Protein identification and small molecule analysis.
PCR instrumentation
Amplifies specific DNA sequences so that a target can be detected reliably from a small sample.
Used for: Avian sexing, psittacine beak and feather disease, freemartin diagnosis.
Photographs of the laboratory and instruments to follow.
Sample types
We work with a wide range of sample types rather than only standardised ones. If your sample is awkward, that is usually a reason to talk to us rather than a reason not to. Describe what you have and we will tell you honestly whether we can analyse it.
When an off-the-shelf test is not enough
A good deal of our work is analysis that does not come as a catalogue item — a compound nobody offers a standard method for, or a question that needs an assay building from scratch. That is what the assay development and contract R&D services exist for.