The development of new scientific ways to see more deeply into the building blocks of nature on a cellular level has led to the some of the greatest advances in medicine over the last century. Now, new research into phosphoinositides, which are a family of membrane lipids essential for many biological and pathological processes and which represent one of the most functionally versatile membrane lipid families involved in human health and disease, has seen further developments in the use of mass spectrometry in continuing to push back the barriers leading to new treatments for many diseases.