The health of their populations and efficient health care systems are of critical importance to the economic and social well-being of nations. Accurate and comparable peptide/protein measurements are required in support of diagnosis, prognosis, monitoring and treatment of widespread diseases (e.g. diabetes). The required consistency of measurement results can be achieved by making them traceable to stated references and through the development of Reference Measurement Systems. The review mainly concentrates on the progress made in the Protein Analysis Working Group of the Consultative Committee for Amount of Substance: Metrology in Chemistry and Biology (CCQM-PAWG) in establishing Primary Calibration Reference Services in the emerging area of health markers such as peptides/proteins. Primary Calibration Reference Services are technical capabilities for composition assignment, commonly as the mass fraction content, of pure substances or solutions thereof. It is a core technical competency for National Measurement Institutes (NMIs) . A limited number of key comparisons, foreseen by the CCQM-PAWG strategy, are discussed that enable NMIs providing measurement services in peptide/protein analysis to test and demonstrate their capabilities. In addition, the review examines the development and improvement of analytical methods and metrological models that are required to meet the needs of NMIs and associated clinical stakeholders.

A variety of iron oxide cluster cations is synthesized in a laser vaporization ion source. The kinetic energy dependence of the collision-induced dissociation (CID) of mass selected FemOn+ (m=1–3, n=1–6) clusters with Xe is studied in this work using a guided ion beam tandem mass spectrometer. Examination of the general dissociation behavior over a broad collision energy range (0–15 eV) shows that iron oxide clusters can dissociate via evaporation of neutral Fe and O atoms as well as fission by loss of neutral O2, FeO, FeO2, Fe2O2, and Fe2O3 fragments. Such fission pathways, which are not observed in the CID studies of pure Fe cluster cations and most other pure transition metal cluster cations, result from the strong iron oxygen bonds. In general, the predominant dissociation pathways are found to correlate with the oxidation state of the iron in the cluster. Thresholds for loss of neutral Fe, O, O2, FeO, FeO2, Fe2O2, and Fe2O3 from various iron oxide cluster cations are quantitatively determined. These values are used to determine bond energies and heats of formation for both neutral and cationic iron oxide clusters in this size range.