Year	Type of Work	Significance	Reference	Objectification
1989	Quantification of cholesterol in human plasma using "Static Organic Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry" (SIMS)	First quantitative measurement with static organic SIMS	Meyer, K., Hagenhoff, B., Deimel, M., Benninghoven, A. & Bauch, H.J.(1992). Quantification of Molecular Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry by Internal Standards. Organic Mass Spectrometry, 27, 10, 1148-1150	Application in the clinical chemistry department, University Münster [1]
1989	Theoretical and experimental description of the electrospray ionization effect	Prediction that the electrospray ionization could generate molecular ions of unlimited mass	Wilm, M. & Mann, M. (1994). Electrospray and Taylor-Cone Theory, Dole's Beam of Macromolecules at last ? International Journal of Mass Spectrometry and Ion Processes, 136, 167 -180	Nobel prize for Prof. Fenn in 2002 for the experimental discovery of large ions generated with the electrospray ionization (1989) [2]
1992	Experimental realisation of the nano-electrospray ion source	By a factor of about 100 more sensitive peptide sequencing and protein mass determinations	Wilm, M., Shevchenko, A., Houthaeve, T., Breit, S., Schweigerer, L., Fotsis, T. & Mann, M. (1996). Femtomole Sequencing of Proteins from Polyacrylamide Gels by Nano-Electrospray Mass Spectrometry. Nature, 379, 466-469	Richtzenhain prize of the DKFZ, Edman prize together with Dr. M. Mann and Dr. J. Yates
1999	Realisation that the Tandem Affinity Purification (TAP) introduced by B. Seraphin will be a key technology for functional proteomics - dedication of all available mass spectrometry resources - proposal to use TAP as a project to create an EMBL spin-off company (the investment bankers favored another project proposal)	Systematic exploration of protein function in Yeast Winning a competitive BioFuture grant for functional proteomics (4% overall success rate)	Rigaut, G., Shevchenko, A., Rutz, B., Wilm, M., Mann, M. & Seraphin, B. (1999). A generic protein purification method for protein complex characterization and proteome exploration. Nat Biotechnol, 17, 10, 1030-2	CellZome (EMBL - spin off company, 90 employees) came into existence when the organizers adopted the TAP method and the systematic investigation of protein networks as their core activity (2001) [3]
2001	Establishing the company funded visitor laboratory	Realisation of the major core-facility for protein characterization at EMBL
2001	The iTAP project - the modification of the TAP technology to transfer it to cells from higher eukaryotes	Systematic exploration of protein function in higher eukaryotes on cell culture level	Forler, D., Kocher, T., Rode, M., Gentzel, M., Izaurralde, E. & Wilm, M. (2003). An efficient pro- tein complex purification method for functional proteomics in higher eukaryotes. Nat Biotechnol, 21, 1, 89-92	Patent licensed in many countries, more than 70 technology transfer agreements
2004	Introduction of a new mass spectrometric data acquisition regime for the general characterization of secondary protein modifications	First general method to characterize protein modifications	Niggeweg, R., Köcher, T., Gentzel, M., Buscaino, A., Taipale, M., Akhtar, A., Wilm, M. (2005). A General Precursor-Ion-Like Scanning Mode on Quadrupole Time-of-Flight Instruments Compatible with Chromatographic Separation. Proteomics, 2006. 6(1): p. 41-53.	Waters is launching a new series of instruments based on this acquisition regime (2004, independent development: ExpressIon systems). This acquisition regime promises to become one of the central methods in analysing quantitative patterns in proteomics. It will have noticeable impact for medical applications and research in systems biology. Today (2018),in an improved form, it is implemented as an acquisition method in many types of modern mass spectrometers (All Ion Fragmentation, SWATH). In 2017 the developer of the SWATH technique received the HUPO science & technology award .
2017	Version 4.0 of Arcadiate published, a programme for the visualisation and analysis of proteomic data	A high level, user friendly application on the level of Skyline for the analysis of proteomic data		Arcadiate
2017	Successful completion of the experiments to synthesise large membranes with membrane proteins using a nano-electrospray ion source	Such membranes have the potential to bring the biochemical properties of membrane proteins into the macroscopic world	M. Wilm, “Synthesis of Extended, Self-Assembled Biological Membranes containing Membrane Proteins from Gas Phase,” bioRxiv, vol. 23, pp. 661215, 2019