Mass Spectrometry: Current Applications, New Technologies and the People behind the Scenes

摘要

Mass spectrometry (MS) has been gaining advanced interest in the past few years. Especially in the field of life sciences the refined techniques and coupling methods opened an extreme variety of analytical possibilities. Ten years ago MS was expensive, time consuming and a method that needed highly skilled specialists. Today MS-devices are easy to use, fast, extremely accurate, highly reproducible and in respect of their abilities cheap. A key event in this development was the introduction of the Orbitrap mass-spectrometer. Dr. Alexander Makarov is the head of the team, which developed Orbitrap. For this pioneering work Dr. Makarov recently received the "American Society for Mass Spectrometry - distinguished contribution in mass spectrometry - award", the most important award for mass spectrometrists. Dr. Arne Kusserow, the editor of the G.I.T. Laboratory Journal Europe, is thankful for the opportunity to conduct this interview and to introduce the developer of the orbitrap principle of ion trapping to our readers.