Introduction

In the last quarter century, advances in mass spectrometry (MS) have been at the forefront of efforts to map complex biological systems including the human metabolome, proteome, and microbiome. In parallel, MS has become a well‐established molecular level technology for microbial characterization. MS has demonstrated its considerable advantage as a rapid, accurate, and cost-effective method for microbial identification, compared to conventional phenotypic techniques. Applications of MS for microorganism characterization in research, clinical microbiology, counter-bioterrorism, food safety, and environmental monitoring have been documented in thousands of publications. While previous work has covered broader approaches in using MS to characterize microorganisms at the species level or above, this book focuses on strain-level and subtyping applications. In this introduction, a short summary of each individual chapter is presented. MS methods and approaches with potential to impact future clinical applications, not covered explicitly in the book, are also briefly reviewed.