title: Biomedical mass spectrometry in today's and tomorrow's clinical microbiology laboratories.
abstract: Clinical microbiology is a conservative laboratory exercise where base technologies introduced in the 19th century remained essentially unaltered. High-tech mass spectrometry (MS) has changed that. Within a few years following its adaptation to microbiological diagnostics, MS has been introduced, embraced, and broadly accepted by clinical microbiology laboratories throughout the world as an innovative tool for definitive bacterial species identification. Herein, we review the current state of the art with respect to this exciting new technology and discuss potential future applications.
authors.affiliation: bioMérieux SA, R&D Microbiology, La Balme Grottes, France. alex.vanbelkum@biomerieux.com
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: van Belkum
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Welker
authors.forename: Marcel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Erhard
authors.forename: Sonia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chatellier
mesh_terms: D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D008828:Microbiological Techniques / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends