Critical moments in time: reflections on the development of orthogonal acceleration time-of-flight mass spectrometry.

This paper reflects on the historical development of orthogonal acceleration time-of-flight analyzers that have been used routinely for high sensitivity analyses of biological molecules for more than a decade. In particular, the role of the late Michael Guilhaus from the University of New South Wales in Australia is highlighted. This account shows that like most advances in science, successful commercialization of new technology is not straightforward and is often the result of critical contributions of different people and organizations at different points in time.