Fernandez provides a highly accessible insight into his laboratory’s work on ambient mass spectrometry, analytical problems crucial to space travel, and characterizing pharmaceutical compounds and the molecular signatures of disease. The interview provides a good introduction into many diverse applications of state-of-the-art mass spectrometry, which, in the Fernandez lab, translates to bringing highly sophisticated molecular characterization to bear in non-traditional environments and on important biological questions.  

Fernandez is the twenty-fourth investigator to be profiled in the “Faces” series, which began in 2018. Mostly from the US, the honorees work across a variety of organizations – universities, companies, and national laboratories – and on all aspects of mass spectrometry.