They Called It a Stupid Toy. Now It Makes Billions and Saves Babies.

A chemistry professor at the University of Florida, Richard Yost, Ph.D., will be inducted into the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame for his work on the mass spectrometer that’s revolutionizing the medical field.

After collecting the sample, nurses send the newborn screening form to be tested for up to 100 different targeted disorders, including phenylketonuria, an inherited disease that can cause permanent intellectual disability when not diagnosed early in life.

Neonatal screening is just one application of the triple quadrupole mass spectrometer, which was pioneered by Chris Enke, a professor at Michigan State University, and his graduate student at the time, Richard Yost.

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