At this year’s annual meeting of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, John Yates III, PhD, a professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine, received the John B. Fenn Award for a Distinguished Contribution in Mass Spectrometry. Yates is the lead inventor of the SEQUEST software and algorithm that laid a critical foundation for the field of proteomics and dramatically enhanced the accuracy and effectiveness of mass spectrometry. Researchers around the world now use proteomics to study proteins in almost every organelle in order to understand differences between normal and disease states.