Exhibition floor
The 2012 Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry & Applied Spectroscopy, Pittcon, was held on March 11 – 14, 2012 in Orlando, Florida.
Over ~1,280 oral presentations and ~100 short courses on all aspects of analytical chemistry were presented.
Clearly, one highlight of the scientific program was the session entitled “Advancing analytical technologies for human health and security”, organized by Dr. May Copsey, Editor of the Analytical journals at RSC. Distinguished scientists Prof. Gary M. Hieftje, Prof. Joseph Caruso, Prof. R. Kenneth Marcus, Prof. Roy Goodacre, and Prof. Zheng Ouyang gave well-received lectures on their recent discoveries.
Prof. R. Graham Cooks, Purdue University, gave the Sunday plenary lecture and demonstrated how ambient ionization and miniaturized mass spectrometers can help to promote human health and forensics.
(You can find some recent examples of these authors’ work below – May Copsey, Ed.)
- A number of new analytical instruments were launched at Pittcon. Of interest to a large number of JAAS readers might be the new iCAP Q ICP-MS, launched by Thermo Scientific on March 12. This new instrument comes shortly after the launch of Agilent’s new 8000 ICP-QQQ at the Winter Conference on Plasma Spectrochemistry in January 2012. Great to see that the ICP-MS market is back in motion again.
The RSC booth on the exhibition floor was very busy thanks to free coffee and – more importantly – the presence of RSC journal editors and staff. Many visitors stopped by to meet, greet, and to learn about new things at RSC.
Exhibition centre
Interestingly, the exhibition was smaller compared to previous years and major companies, namely Perkin Elmer and Agilent Technologies, skipped the show. In total, approx. 15,500 attendees visited the conference and expo.
If you attended the conference and would like to share your experience, please leave a comment below.
Pittcon 2013 will be held in Philadelphia, PA, March 17 – 21, 2013.
We look forward to seeing you in Philadelphia.
Of course, this is just a personal view and many more instruments from other companies are available as well. For more information please visit, e.g., the scientific instruments database provided by EVISA.
Articles of interest
Thermal mechanism for formation of electrical prepeak and pressure waves in a microsecond direct current pulsed glow discharge with a Grimm-type source: a modeling investigation
Maxim Voronov, V Hoffmann, Wolfgang Buscher, Carsten Engelhard, Steven J Ray and Gary M Hieftje
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012, Accepted Manuscript
DOI:10.1039/C2JA30014A
Significant proteins affecting cerebral vasospasm using complementary ICPMS and MALDI-MS
Renee N. Easter, Colin G. Barry, Gail Pyne-Geithman and Joseph A. Caruso
Metallomics, 2012, 4, 48-55
DOI: 10.1039/C1MT00079A
Systems level studies of mammalian metabolomes: the roles of mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy
Warwick B. Dunn, David I. Broadhurst, Helen J. Atherton, Royston Goodacre and Julian L. Griffin
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2011, 40, 387-426
DOI: 10.1039/B906712B
Femtosecond laser ablation particle introduction to a liquid sampling-atmospheric pressure glow discharge ionization source
Anthony J. Carado, C. Derrick Quarles, Andrew M. Duffin, Charles J. Barinaga, Richard E. Russo, R. Kenneth Marcus, Gregory C. Eiden and David W. Koppenaal
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012, 27, 385-389
DOI: 10.1039/C2JA10331A
Rapid Analysis of Whole Blood by Paper Spray Mass Spectrometry for Point-of-Care Therapeutic Drug Monitoring
Ryan D Espy, Nicholas E Manicke, Zheng Ouyang and R. Graham Cooks
Analyst, 2012, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C2AN35082C
