Abstract
Pharmacodynamics and toxicodynamics are the study of the biochemical and physiological effects of therapeutic agents and toxicants and their mechanisms of action. MALDI-MS imaging offers great potential for the study of pharmaco/toxicodynamic responses in tissue owing is its ability to study multiple biomarkers simultaneously in a label-free manner. Here, existing examples of such studies examining anticancer drugs and topically applied treatments are described. Examination of the literature shows that the use of MS imaging in pharmaco/toxicodynamic studies is in fact quite low. The reasons for this are discussed and potential developments in the methodology that might lead to its further use are described.