The Torbern Bergman Medal 2001

For the past fifty years, the mass spectrometer has been in focus for continuous developments to become one of the most valuable analytical techniques. The role of mass spectrometry today is for example, recognised to be of prime importance in life science research. During this time of rapid development, there has been one person that stands above everybody else for making a whole world understand how "fun" it is with mass spectrometry.

His own fascination to explore the never-ending wonders of ion chemistry and to tame it to useful tools, combined with his unique ability to inspire young scientists, make Professor Fred McLafferty a most worthy receiver of the 2001 Torben Bergman award.

Fred W. McLafferty, born in 1923, received his undergraduate degree from University of Nebraska, his PhD from Cornell and his postdoctorate from University of Iowa. In 1950, he became responsible for mass spectrometry and gas chromatography at the Dow Chemical Co. In 1964, he moved to Purdue and four years later back to Cornell where he still remains an active scientist. Today, Fred McLafferty has co-authored over 450 scientific publications and supervised a large number of graduate students and post-docs to explore new avenues in the ion chemistry field. Fred McLafferty became a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1982 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1985. Among the number of awards received by Fred McLafferty, we note the Analytical Chemistry Fisher Award in 1981, the J.J. Thomson Gold Medal in 1985, the ACS award on Instrumentation in 1989 and the Mass Spectrometry Filed and Franklin Award in 1989. Fred McLafferty is a popular editor for a large number of scientific journals.

The field of mass spectrometry has changed the face of chemical research fundamentally and is today a cornerstone of the analytical techniques. Professor Fred McLafferty is a name synonymous with the development and refinement of the mass spectrometric techniques. The contributions are as wide as they are deep and there are numerous examples of developments where Fred McLafferty has been leading this research. He was the founding father of the fundamental mechanistic scheme in mass spectrometry with systematic interpretation of mass spectra that eventually has made computerised spectral interpretation possible.

The pioneering contributions involve many areas like gaseous ion reactions (McLafferty rearrangement), instrumentation (GC/MS, LC/MS, MS/MS), special techniques (collision activated dissociation, neutralization-reionization, electron capture dissociation, pico-spray), computer data acquisition, reduction, and identification (Probability Base Matching) reference data (392K spectra), and high resolution MS/MS characterization of biomolecules and gas-phase protein folding.

Today, when we identify how the role of mass spectrometry is making a paradigm shift in life science, we are proud to honour and recognise Professor Fred McLafferty for dedicating his life to developments of mass spectrometry.

Thereby mass spectrometry has become the main choice for characterisation and ultrasensitive analysis for a wide number of applications.