Mass Spectrometry Research in 2025 and Its Real-World Impact
Mass spectrometry research is often associated with complex instrumentation and highly specialized experiments. Yet the questions it helps answer are deeply connected to everyday life: How do diseases develop inside cells? How can forensic evidence be made more reliable? What defines food quality beyond taste? And how can environmental pollutants be detected more comprehensively?
In 2025, a growing body of peer-reviewed mass spectrometry research using the SICRIT® Ion Source addressed exactly these questions. Rather than focusing on technical specifications or publication counts, this article looks at what this research is about, what new insights it delivers, and why those insights matter beyond the laboratory.
Life Science & Biomedicine: Mapping Molecules Inside Cells
Understanding biological processes at the subcellular level requires analytical methods that can capture chemical diversity with spatial precision, while preserving delicate structures. In 2025, mass spectrometry imaging using the SICRIT® Ion Source enabled researchers to visualize molecules within cells with unprecedented clarity.
A study published in Nature Communications demonstrated subcellular imaging of lipids and nucleotides using a transmission-mode laser desorption source combined with SICRIT®. Researchers achieved micrometer-scale resolution and detected a wide range of biomolecules, allowing chemical distributions to be correlated with cellular structures via optical microscopy. This approach revealed heterogeneous distributions of lipids and nucleotides across different subcellular compartments, highlighting molecular organization that is invisible to conventional techniques.
By providing both spatial and molecular detail, this work shows how the SICRIT® Ion Source supports high-resolution, soft ionization workflows that advance our understanding of fundamental biological processes. Insights gained from such imaging create a foundation for future discoveries in disease mechanisms and biomarker development.
Forensic Science: Faster and More Reliable Evidence
Forensic investigations often involve complex, limited, or rapidly changing samples, where every trace can be critical. In 2025, mass spectrometry research demonstrated how advanced ionization can provide faster, more sensitive, and more informative analyses in real-world scenarios.
At the University of Córdoba, researchers developed a rapid method for detecting trace drug residues on surfaces by swabbing, thermally desorbing, and ionizing compounds with SICRIT®. The approach reliably detected substances such as cocaine, codeine and methadone at nanogram levels over large surface areas, enabling faster and simpler screening for forensic and clinical applications.
Building on the challenge of drug-facilitated sexual assault, another study explored fingerprints as an alternative source of evidence when biological samples were no longer informative. Using multimodal mass spectrometry imaging, combining MALDI MSI, DESI MSI, and SICRIT®, the researchers detected and spatially mapped risperidone and its active metabolite paliperidone in contaminated fingerprints. This approach demonstrated that a single fingerprint can provide both chemical and biometric information, offering a realistic way to recover forensic evidence.
In addition to drugs, forensic work also requires rapid and sensitive detection of explosives from limited post-blast residues. A study using SICRIT® directly coupled to an LTQ mass spectrometer analyzed soil samples for explosives including RDX, PETN, HMX, TNT-related compounds, and nitroglycerin, optimizing ionization to detect concentrations as low as a few nanograms per milliliter. The direct injection enabled minimal sample preparation and fast analysis, highlighting the potential for high-throughput, sensitive workflows in post-explosion investigations.
Together, these studies illustrate how SICRIT® supports transformation of forensic analysis, enabling rapid, sensitive, and information-rich detection across drugs, fingerprints, and explosive residues, and delivering more reliable, actionable results for investigators and law enforcement.
Food Analysis: Monitoring Volatiles for Quality and Flavor
Food quality and flavor are closely tied to the chemical composition of volatile compounds, which can change during processing, storage, or cooking. Real-time analysis of these compounds allows producers and researchers to understand how flavors develop, ensure consistent product quality, and differentiate between varieties.
As an example, a 2025 study applied the SICRIT® Ion Source to monitor tea volatiles during roasting. Tea samples were heated at 160 °C and the generated vapors were directly ionized for high-resolution mass spectrometry detection. The system captured the progressive release of compounds such as N‑heterocyclics, esters, alcohols, amines, amino acids, and Maillard reaction products, revealing distinct chemical profiles for teas of different fermentation levels. Multivariate analysis further distinguished tea types based on their mass spectral fingerprints, illustrating how SICRIT®-MS can track dynamic chemical changes without sample pretreatment.
This study highlights how direct, real-time volatile analysis can support quality control, flavor research, and product differentiation, while providing a model for similar approaches across the food industry and other applications involving complex aromas.
Environmental Analysis: Tracking Emerging Pollutants in the Air
Airborne pollutants are increasingly diverse and persistent, and monitoring their presence is essential for understanding environmental risks and guiding regulatory decisions. Efficient, sensitive methods that can detect compounds across a wide range of volatility and polarity are critical for capturing the full picture of chemical exposure in the atmosphere.
A 2025 study applied SICRIT® coupled to high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry to analyze ultrashort- to long-chain PFAS in fine airborne particulate matter (PM2.5), the microscopic particles that can be inhaled deep into the lungs. This solvent-free, solid-phase microextraction approach minimized in-source fragmentation while enabling simultaneous detection of highly polar and neutral PFAS species, including trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) and other ultrashort-chain perfluorocarboxylic acids. The method revealed the widespread presence of ultrashort-chain PFAS and allowed exploration of temporal correlations with co-occurring pollutants such as PAHs and phthalates, demonstrating its utility for comprehensive environmental monitoring.
By combining ambient ionization with minimal sample preparation and broad-spectrum detection, this approach provides a practical pathway for routine and high-throughput analysis of emerging pollutants, supporting environmental research, risk assessment, and informed policy-making.
Connecting Fundamental Research with Real-World Questions
The studies highlighted from 2025 show how mass spectrometry, powered by the SICRIT® Ion Source, delivers insights that extend far beyond the laboratory. From mapping molecules inside cells to improving the reliability of forensic evidence, profiling complex food flavors, and tracking emerging environmental pollutants, these advances provide actionable knowledge that touches diverse areas of everyday life.
By connecting robust analytical workflows with real-world questions, this body of research demonstrates that progress in mass spectrometry is measured not just in instruments or data, but in its ability to generate understanding, support better decisions, and ultimately create meaningful impact for people, products, and the environment.
We thank all researchers and partners who worked with SICRIT® in 2025 for a year of practical, application-driven discoveries and look forward to the extraordinary research 2026 will bring.