Spectra Stable Isotopes is a major producer of Stable Isotope Biochemicals (SIBs). SIBs are materials such as amino acids and carbohydrates, in which the naturally abundant isotopes of hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen ⁽¹H, ¹²C ^{and 14}N) are replaced with the rare stable isotopes of these elements (²H [deuterium], ¹³C and ¹⁵N). Stable isotope products include:

• Human ubiquitin protein nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) standard
• Growth media for bacteria and mammalian cell cultures
• Carbohydrates
• Nucleic acids for enzymatic RNA and DNA synthesis
• Fatty acids for metabolic studies
• Acids and ammonium salts

Spectra Stable Isotopes specifies the ¹³C content of its products to be >98%. In practice, all products contain >99% ¹³C. For maximum precision in determining ¹³C content, Spectra Stable Isotopes determines ¹³C enrichment of the palmitic acid fraction derived from the algal biomass. ¹³C levels determined in this way are normally >99.1-99.4%.


Uniformly Labeled Glycoproteins
Spectra Stable Isotopes has a unique program to determine the structures of biologically active human glycoprotein hormones and receptors using NMR. Using a proprietary mammalian medium termed Celtone® M, Spectra Stable Isotopes is producing glycoproteins uniformly labeled with ¹³C and ¹⁵N. High resolution molecular structures of glycoproteins, labeled in this way, can be determined using NMR. Scientists working on Spectra Stable Isotopes glycoprotein (GP) NMR research program are studying a range of important glycoproteins such as hormones and proteins involved in cancer, osteoporosis and arthritis, as well as scarring and nerve regeneration. The GP NMR program has recently solved two landmark structures of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), the human pregnancy hormone: i) the structure of the carbohydrate sidechain (see below) essential for the biological activity of hCG and ii) the structure of the glycosylated biologically active hCG BETA (see below).