The fabulous scientific advances witnessed in the world of analytical sciences have had a profound influence on the health, comfort and welfare of mankind. However, one can question if there is enough understanding and appreciation of the intensive study in clinical science where the main focus is usually on the discovery and not in the requirements that made the discovery possible (Sr., 1993).
Mass spectrometry (MS) has been a known technology for almost one hundred years, from the time when its basic principles were first described by Nobel laureate Sir Joseph John Thomson in 1897 (JJ 1897, JJ 1913). Despite some very early research on the use of MS for respiratory gas analysis in the 1950s (KT and P, 1957), the majority of early applications of MS in clinical diagnosis go back to the early 1970s with the application of Gas Chromatography (GC) coupled to MS for determination of a variety of biologically significant molecules.
Because GC requires a certain level of analyte volatility, and since most biologically active molecules are polar, thermolabile, and involatile, elaborate extraction and derivatization protocols had to be devised to implement GCMS useful enough for the analysis of clinically relevant analytes and samples. To make sample analysis less difficult by MS, a significant amount of R&D.
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