The domain of biotechnology keeps adding new inventions and discoveries with the ultimate purpose to foster innovations. Scientists use the NIST mass spectrum library to recognize the compounds of subject as it is one of the largest available databases for commercialized purpose.
It is worth mentioning here that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Mass Spectral Library is the most extensively approached and trusted resource all around the globe for finding the mass spectra.
This has further been enhanced by the latest update of NIST20 that introduced 8,000 plant metabolites, 6,000 human metabolites, 1,000 pesticides, 2,000 drugs, and 1,000 lipids has made things a little easier. This was done with the purpose of integrating all the metabolites in the Human Metabolome Database with the introduction of 2020 library update.
Once NIST scientists decided on the compounds to be included in the update, Yang—who worked on quality control of the library—developed computer algorithms and software tools that thoroughly mine all useful spectra from gigabyte scale datasets for processing data, annotating spectra and assisting manual inspection.
The NIST Mass Spectral Library comes pre-installed on many instruments, and users can purchase the update from their instrument manufacturer or other distributors.
She also developed a quality control pipeline with more than 40 steps by using raw data statistics, chemical structures and spectra of related compounds to reject contaminants and confirm spectrum quality.
The objective of updating the NIST Mass Spectral Library with the novel compounds will continue; but as of now, chemists can simply recognize tens of thousands of compounds in a more proficient manner.
With the already registered nearly 1.5 million spectra in its database, one of the biggest questions of updating the NIST Mass Spectral Library every year is adding compounds that will actually help scientists make a difference. So, of the countless compounds out there, which ones should be included in the update?
