New advances in proteomics, driven largely by developments in mass spectrometry, continue to reveal the complexity and diversity of pathogenic mechanisms among microbes that underpin infectious diseases. Therefore a new era in medical microbiology is demanding a rapid transition from current procedures to high throughput analytical systems for the diagnosis of microbial pathogens. This book covers the broad microbiological applications of proteomics and mass spectrometry. It is divided into six sections that follow the general progression in which most microbiology laboratories are approaching the subject -Transition, Tools, Preparation, Profiling by Patterns, Target Proteins, and Data Analysis.