The Technology Feature 'Metabolomics: Small molecules, single cells' (Nature 540, 153–155; 2016) erroneously stated that Matthias Heinemann was a former postdoc in Renato Zenobi's lab. Although he worked with Zenobi, Heinemann was a postdoc in another lab at the time. Also, Heinemann's background was in biochemical engineering, not analytical chemistry.