John Fenn (pictured), who shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, died on 10 December aged 93. In the late 1980s, he developed electrospray ionization, a way to gently separate clumped proteins into a fine spray of individual molecules. This method, when combined with mass spectrometry, gave scientists a tool to quickly identify proteins via their mass and helped to launch the field of proteomics. In 2005, Fenn lost a legal battle over the patent rights to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where he developed the technique.
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