Dear colleagues,

The unmet need for highly accurate methods of disease biomarker identification and diagnosis poses new challenges for developments in laboratory medicine.

Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique used for determining the elemental composition of samples, quantifying the mass of particles and molecules, and elucidating the chemical structure of molecules. It provides both structural and quantitative data and can be used in a “global” or “targeted” manner allowing the identification of thousands of biomolecules (proteins, lipids, and metabolites) from a biological sample.

Various types of MS with high specificity, such as liquid chromatography (LC-MS), gas chromatography (GC-MS), and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization/time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF MS), are being increasingly valued and utilized as tools in clinical laboratories.

Advances in mass spectrometry-based disease biomarker discoveries are continuously expanding the clinical diagnostic landscape. Although a number of MS-based in vitro diagnostics are already adopted in routine clinical practices, more are expected to undergo transition from bench to bedside in the near future. These MS techniques can indeed overcome the limitations of immunoassays and offer many advantages over earlier approaches.

The high sensitivity, specificity, and high-throughput capacity of mass spectrometry in biomolecules detection render this technology highly powerful in disease detection and therapy monitoring, thus representing the novel paradigm in clinical diagnosis.

Dr. Cristina Banfi
Guest Editor

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