He is a nationally and internationally recognized scientific leader in the development of sensitive biomolecular mass spectrometry methods enabling qualitative and quantitative assessments of the roles of proteins, glycoproteins, and glycans in biological systems. He has developed a fast, highly sensitive chromatographic method that efficiently separates and distinguishes among gangliosides in blood samples from patients with different diseases of the esophagus, including adenocarcinoma, high-grade dysplasia, and Barrett's Esophagus. His method for analyzing N-linked glycans, using multiple-reaction monitoring (MRM) on a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer, permits quantitative comparison of the expression of N-glycans in brain-targeting breast carcinoma cells and metastatic breast cancer cells. The permethylated N-glycan MRM method he developed yields rapid, reliable identification and relative abundances of glycans from varied, complex biological samples. He has further refined MRM to minimize the tissue needed and optimize the process, making it possible for the first time to profile glycans on the surfaces of tissues and cells, rather than whole-tissue samples, thus conserving limited tissue samples for other studies.