Nanopores make portable mass spectrometer for peptides a reality

University of Groningen scientists have developed nanopores to directly measure the mass of peptides. Although the resolution needs improvement, this proof of principle shows that a cheap and portable peptide mass spectrometer can be constructed using existing nanopore technology and the patented pores that were developed in the lab of University of Groningen Associate Professor of Chemical Biology, Giovanni Maglia. An article on this discovery was published in Nature Communications on 19 February.