When the last edition of this book was published in 2000, the field of proteomics was in its infancy. At that time, multidimensional liquid chromatographic separations were being introduced as an alternative to traditional gel-based techniques for separating complex protein and peptide mixtures prior to mass spectrometric detection. Today, this approach - referred to as shotgun proteomics - is considered routine for lar- scale global analyses of protein mixtures. Now in its adolescence, proteomics is fundamentally transforming biological and medical research. Much of this transformation can...