High-throughput biomarker discovery and identification by mass spectrometry.

Native peptides and proteins are of increasing interest in biomedical research because they hold promise to represent a large number of useful diagnostic and therapeutic biomarkers. Discovery attempts from patient samples have to deal with the complexity of biology from a disease perspective as well as with a high individual variability. High throughput screening of samples is therefore the strategy of choice to detect relevant peptidic biomarkers, and requires a high order of automation particularly in the detection process.