Waters Corporation develops innovative analytical science solutions for laboratory dependent organisations around the world in areas such as healthcare delivery, environmental management, food safety, and water quality.

In 2013 Waters launched a revolutionary new mass detector instrument (ACQUITY QDa Detector) that, for the first time, allows scientists to effortlessly integrate mass detection into their lab. However, QDa users are pretty ingenious in their uses of this little detector, taking mass detection into areas it has never been before.  The QDa can go pretty much anywhere, into any lab and a small group of us at Waters have decided to put that to the test by carrying a QDa to the summit of Ben Nevis in Scotland (the tallest mountain in the UK) and performing an analysis at the top.

But we are not just doing it for fun! The trek is also in memory of Tony Gilbert, known to many as “Giblet” who worked for Waters Corporation (in all its incarnations) for 38 years. Tony was a true visionary who worked on cutting edge platform technology projects which could take years to come to fruition. He loved foreign travel whether at work or play, and wherever he was he viewed the world through humorous eyes. His other passions were mountaineering, caving and cycling, and despite being incredibly fit and active he sadly died from prostate cancer beginning of this year. The Waters QDa Challenge 2016 is done in his memory and we hope to raise funds for the important research done by Prostate Cancer UK into this common and cruel disease.