Vanderbilt Basic Sciences Prof. Richard Caprioli (Department of Biochemistry) is featured in the cover story of the American Chemical Society’s primary trade magazine, Chemical and Engineering News. The article outlines how imaging mass spectrometry (IMS), pioneered in the Caprioli laboratory, has now been broadly adopted by the pharmaceutical industry. IMS enables researchers to visualize the distribution of a drug and its metabolites in tissues throughout the body. Thus, investigators can determine whether or not the drug is reaching the desired target tissues, and they can identify potential sites in the body where toxicity might occur. IMS has many other potential applications that are currently being explored in the Caprioli lab, but the wide adoption of the technique for drug development signals that its potential will be fully realized in the years to come. Read more