Why do you think your paper is highly cited?

Proteomics is an emerging field in the biomedical sciences and mass spectrometry is one of it's essential tools. I assume that the paper is highly cited because a large number of scientists are interested to learn about technologies that are central to proteomics.

  Does it describe a new discovery or new methodology that's useful to others?

The paper is a review article and therefore covers a rather wide range of experiments and techniques. The methodologies generally center around the question of how proteins are being identified and structurally analyzed using mass spectrometric tools.

  Could you summarize the significance of your paper in layman's terms?

Last year a draft of the human genome sequence was published. Biologists are therefore now in a position that-in principle-all the components that constitute any human living cell or human individual are known. However, it is now well appreciated that the rules how, when and where specific genes are expressed and how expressed genes interact to carry out their functions are poorly understood. Essentially all biological functions and activities are being carried out by proteins. The field of proteomics attempts to study biological processes by systematically analyzing the proteins that are expressed in a cell or tissue, i.e. the proteome of that cell. Due to the complexity of the proteome this is a technically challenging goal. The most successful attempts to date to analyze proteomes have been based on the use of mass spectrometric techniques. Our article summarizes the current techniques, instruments and their application to proteomics research.