Developed at Cornell University and preparing for an onsite pilot with E. & J. Gallo Winery, the Curio HS prepares dozens of samples in parallel for trace-level testing on the instruments laboratories already use.
October 22, 2026 (Ithaca, NY) — Quantera Analytical today introduced the Curio HS, a planar, parallel, cartridge-based headspace extraction platform that enables significant workflow acceleration for trace-level testing. The Curio HS prepares dozens of samples at once for testing the volatile and semi-volatile compounds that define the safety and quality of beverages, food, and fragrance. Quantera also announced that it is preparing to deploy the Curio HS in a pilot with E. & J. Gallo Winery at its Modesto, Calif. location, and opening an early-access program for producers and laboratories.
“The Curio HS eliminates the sample preparation bottleneck that has limited what you can test for and what tool you can measure it on,” said Terry Bates, PhD, founder and CEO of Quantera. “It’s a dramatic expansion of trace-level testing workflows, and we’re already seeing an extraordinary amount of industry interest.”
Headspace analysis is how producers and laboratories measure the volatile and semi-volatile compounds that are found in parts per billion or even parts per trillion, such as the herbaceous aromas that tell a winemaker whether fruit is ready to pick, an off-flavor in a tank of beer or dairy, or residual solvent in a packaging film. The conventional approach uses coated SPME fibers to extract one sample at a time with a limited number of coating chemistries and then analyzes each with gas chromatography mass spectrometry.
The Curio HS offers a much wider set of options, enabling the use of cutting-edge, novel sorbents, processed in parallel, and tested on chromatography-free mass spectrometers that can read a sample in seconds.
“Curio is the product of nearly a decade of research partnership between Cornell University and E. & J. Gallo Winery,” said Bruce Pan, Director, Chemistry, Research and Applications at E. & J. Gallo Winery. “That collaboration was instrumental in launching Quantera and continues to support the advancement and early application of Curio.”
The Curio HS works with liquid or solid samples placed into a rugged multiwell plate that fits the standard plate footprint. An array of sorbent cartridges seals over the plate, one cartridge above each well, with under two minutes of preparation per sample. Because the sorbent sits in a cartridge rather than on a fiber, labs can choose conventional or advanced sorbents to match the target and the budget, with the same device and workflow. Cartridges are loaded where the sample is collected and sent to the lab, eliminating the need to ship crates of perishable raw material.
The Curio HS is compatible with gas chromatography, including GC-MS and GC-FID, and feeds directly into DART-MS and other chromatography-free mass spectrometers, with liquid chromatography workflows in development. Paired with DART-MS, throughput rises by up to 60x compared with fiber-
based extraction, and per-sample cost falls by up to 80%. On the GC-MS instruments most laboratories already own, per-sample cost falls by about half. Established headspace SPME methods transfer to the Curio HS with minimal re-optimization.
The technology behind the Curio was developed at Cornell University in the laboratory of Professor Gavin Sacks over twelve peer-reviewed publications. Quantera holds an exclusive license to the Cornell patent portfolio covering the extraction geometry and workflow, and has filed its own patent applications on the Curio platform and cartridge design.
In addition to the Gallo pilot, a major contract lab for wines is working with Quantera on high-throughput workflow design, and the USDA Agricultural Research Service is co-authoring a validation study based on a Quantera-USDA pilot program. Bruker Corporation is collaborating with Quantera to supply instrumentation and expertise in Quantera’s laboratory. Quantera is a 2026 Grow-NY finalist and is implementing an ISO 9001 quality management system.
The Curio HS is available now to early-access partners, who receive complimentary method development to move an existing headspace method onto the Curio. Producers and laboratories can request early access at www.quantera.as.
About Quantera
Quantera Analytical develops and manufactures trace-level testing equipment. Its Curio HS platform replaces the slowest step in headspace analysis with a parallel, field-deployable system that prepares dozens of samples at once, works with a wide range of sorbent chemistries, and feeds the instruments a laboratory already uses. The core technology was developed at Cornell University and licensed exclusively to Quantera. Quantera is based in Ithaca, New York. For more information, please visit www.quantera.as.
