This Metallomics highlight paper by Tamer Shoeib, PhD (which won the front cover of the October 2011 issue of the journal) describes the first ever successful use of a particularly powerful mass spectrometry technique (a mass spectrometer is a device that determines the weight ofmolecules) in identifying and quantifying the interactions of oxaliplatin, one of the most widely used anti-cancer drugs worldwide, with DNA the molecule that carries all the genetic information for cellular replication.The method developed was shown to be successful on actual samples from patientwith colorectal cancer making it a viable option in a clinical environment. This method was also shown to be applicable for the study of the interactions of oxaliplatin with other small molecules within a human cell, being one of the main causes of this drug’s toxicity.