In the human body, there are millions of living microorganisms involved in protecting the body from invaders, helping digestion and regulating moods, but there are also harmful pathogens that cause infectious diseases. For instance, the coronavirus (COVID-19) has caused considerable loss of life since its outbreak. Comprehensive analysis and characterization of microbes is of significant importance to understand the function and role of microorganisms, and rapid detection and identification of unknown pathogens are essential in early diagnosis, treatment monitoring and personalized medicine.

Mass spectrometry is a technique to ionize molecules and detect the mass-to-charge ratio of the generated ions. The technique is widely used in hospitals for pathogenic bacteria identification, as well as in environmental science and food science for biosafety control. This book summarizes the most recent development of mass spectrometry techniques in microbial analysis, including mass spectrometry-based microbial identification, bacterial antimicrobial resistance study, data mining algorithm development, omics for microbial research, applications in clinical diagnosis, environmental science and food science, and more. It will guide researchers in the field, and those who are about to enter the field, in the most appropriate methods to characterize microbes and enable their detection.