Long before mass spectrometry became an important tool for cell biology, it was yielding scientific insights in physics and chemistry. Here is a brief history of how the technology has expanded from a tool for studying atomic structure and characterizing small molecules to its current incarnation as the most powerful technique for analyzing proteomes.
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I thank C. Delahunty and X. Han for reading early drafts and acknowledge funding from the US National Institutes of Health (P41 RR011823, R01 MH067880 and R01 HL079442).
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Yates III, J. A century of mass spectrometry: from atoms to proteomes. Nat Methods 8, 633–637 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1659
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1659
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