Patent US 7,069,152

An apparatus for identifying a protein, polypeptide or peptide by means of mass spectrometry and especially by tandem mass spectrometry is disclosed. The apparatus preferably functions to model the fragmentation of a peptide or protein in a tandem mass spectrometer to facilitate comparison with an experimentally determined spectrum. A fragmentation model is used which takes account of all possible fragmentation pathways which a particular sequence of amino acids may undergo. A peptide or protein may be identified by comparing an experimentally determined mass spectrum with spectra predicted using such a fragmentation model from a library of known peptides or proteins.