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Pittcon 2015 provides breadth and depth
February 2015
EDIT CONNECT
SHARING OPTIONS:
Pittcon 2015 Conference & Expo
Ernest N. Morial Convention Center
New Orleans
March 8-12,
2015
NEW ORLEANS—DDNews pre-show features always aim to inform our readers about
what’s new and important about the upcoming event—in effect, to answer the question, “Why should I attend?” This year, in this
introduction, we’ve added a very contemporary measure—what’s trending at Pittcon
2015? To find out, we asked Senior Marketing Communications Specialist Marian Nardozzi.
“I think the
main concept here is how we use social media to build and expand our reach to expose new people and the ‘younger’ audience who might not know
about Pittcon—pre-show, during the event and post-show. I guess the short of it is that these social network platforms are serving as tools to keep
people informed about the conference on many levels.”
“We are definitely reaching the younger
demographic. As a side note, among Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, we have twice as many followers as Facebook. Our numbers across all platforms are steadily
rising each month,” Nardozzi adds. “Perhaps altering the equation, we are also using Facebook this year as a registration tool to have the
ability to register directly from Facebook or for followers to send the registration to others in their group. We have found that the number-one way that new
Pittcon conferees have found out about Pittcon is through colleague referral, and social networks greatly impact this process in a positive
way.”
Also, Nardozzi says, that means exhibitors use it before and during conference week as a platform to
let conferees know that they will be at Pittcon and what they will have going on in their booths.
“Our short
course instructors also use it to build awareness for their course to help promote attendance. We also use social networking to distribute interesting
articles and educational information to our audience by posting links/news/findings from different journals and magazines,” Nardozzi explains.
“Finally, we also use these platforms in an entertaining way for conferees to post photos of themselves at Pittcon—typically we run a contest
with viewers to vote on their favorite pic.”
Whether representing the younger set (or not), Nardozzi adds
that Pittcon’s reach does indeed continue to expand, noting, “Approximately 40 percent of our attendees are first-timers every year. The most
common comments we get are about the sheer size of the show. First-time attendees can sometimes be overwhelmed by the size of the expo floor and the number
of the technical presentations. The key to a successful week is pre-planning and organization especially for the first-time attendee. I believe that is the
most important message you can get out to first-time attendees.”
The Pittcon website also features
“Pittcon at a Glance,” which provides all the information on exhibitors, the technical program and short courses, all sortable by different
criteria (date, methodology, application, etc.). And for those who prefer the hard copy, a final program is available onsite and will be posted to the
website in PDF form approximately a week before the conference. Nardozzi points out that this is a “static document” and does not contain the
most recent updates.
As it now stands, the program features a host of presentations relevant to drug discovery.
One of those is the Undergraduate Poster Session, titled “Exploration of Active Ingredients Contained Within 'Legal High' Supplements:
Elucidation and Characterization of Synthetic Drug Compounds.”
A few symposia should also be of interest to
those in the drug discovery space, such as “Addressing the Throughput Challenges of MS-Based Screening Using Various Front-End Automation
Technologies,” “Methodologies and Analytical Approaches for the Crystallization and Structure Determination of G Protein-Coupled Receptors”
and “Preparative Two-Dimensional Chromatography for Drug Discovery and Development.”
In addition, the
Organized Contributed sessions offer such fare as “Chiral Method Development in SFC with Laser Polarimeter Detection,” “Fast Detection and
Identification of Totally Unknown Drugs, Metabolites and Other Xenobiotics Using HRMS-Based Data Mining Technology: Current Status and Challenges” and
“SFC Technology and Applications for Supporting Early Drug Discovery Programs.”
For some other
offerings of interest, see the story “Drug discovery offerings” later in this section.
Nardozzi also
points out that there will also be literally hundreds of presentations covering myriad pharmaceutical issues. Among them are two award presentations, nine
symposia and an equal number of workshops, dozens of organized contributed sessions and oral sessions and hundreds of posters. Also covering the life
sciences will be 14 symposia, two workshops, 15 oral sessions, six posters and almost three dozen short courses.
And while it may not be of as much importance to many of those in drug discovery, Nardozzi also highlights a dedicated food-science section on the
expo floor, appearing for the first time this year and featuring the following exhibitors: Milwaukee Instruments, Alpha MOS America Inc., Bruker, Fluid
Management Systems, Optofluidics Inc., ADANI Systems Inc., Horiba Instruments Inc. and USHIO Inc.
BRIEFS:
Networking sessions run the gamut
NEW ORLEANS—Ranging from general interest to nanotechnology, these two-hour sessions at Pittcon 2015 will provide a
unique networking opportunity for attendees with similar interests to meet and resolve problems, discuss new techniques or brainstorm new ideas in an
informal setting.
All networking sessions are included in the cost of a Pittcon 2015 registration, and there is no
need to sign up in advance. Conferees will be able to network with other colleagues working on similar problems in their field of interest.
Of general interest will be such sessions as Getting the Most out of your Pittcon Experience, Challenges and Opportunities
for Analytical Science in Asia, Challenges and Opportunities for Analytical Science in Latin America and Creating a More Effective Lab Safety Program.
In the nanotechnology space will be sessions like Nanotechnologies—Measurement Techniques for the
Characterization of Nano-objects, Food Microbiome and Nanotechnology and Particle Size Analysis: Modern Challenges and Solutions.
Finally, in the pharmaceutical area, there are the sessions titled Quality by Design for Development of Analytical Methods
and Analysis of Excipients in Bioformulations.
Walter H. Coulter Lecture features Naomi J. Halas
NEW ORLEANS— Pittcon is pleased to announce that Naomi J. Halas, Stanley C. Moore Professor of
Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University, will be the Wallace H. Coulter Lecture speaker. The lecture, “Plasmonics: Shedding Light on
Cross-Cutting Science and Technologies,” will take place Sunday, March 8, at 4:30 p.m. in the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. A mixer will
immediately follow the lecture.
About Pittcon
PITTSBURGH—Pittcon is a registered trademark of The Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, a Pennsylvania non-
profit organization. Co-sponsored by the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh and the Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh, Pittcon is the premier
annual conference and exposition on laboratory science. Proceeds from Pittcon fund science education and outreach at all levels, kindergarten through adult.
Pittcon donates more than a million dollars a year to provide financial and administrative support for various science outreach activities, including science
equipment grants, research grants, scholarships and internships for students, awards to teachers and professors, and grants to public science centers,
libraries and museums. Visit pittcon.org for more information.
Drug discovery offerings
In addition to the
symposia, undergraduate poster session and contributed sessions noted in the main article, here are some other offerings of potential interest to drug
discovery and development professionals:
Oral Sessions
Poster Sessions
Symposia
Workshops
Short courses
Pittcon 2015 offers 67 drug-related short
courses to advance attendees’ continuing education:
International Year of
Light
Pittcon is proud to be an Associate Sponsor for the International Year of Light and
Light-based Technologies (IYL 2015). IYL 2015 is a cross-disciplinary educational and outreach project with more than 100 partners from over 85 countries. As
the Pittcon organizers note, “It’s been a busy millennium in the world of light science, so to celebrate the International Year of Light 2015,
Pittcon has decided to illuminate some of the key bright ideas of the last 1,000 years.”
Offerings
include:
Timeline of Light Technologies
Ocean Optics will be sponsoring an exciting
interactive display, “Timeline of Light Technologies.” The display, a museum-type theme, will show the history of light technologies over the
years and bring awareness for the problem-solving potential of light technology.
Light, Color and
Spectroscopy
This Pittcon spectroscopy workshop will be presented to the Renew School in New Orleans on Feb. 9.
The International Year of Light—SAS
This special session, “Fundamental Science-driven
Infrared Spectroscopic Imaging for Clinical Diagnostic Systems,” will be presented by the Society of Applied Spectroscopy (SAS), on March 9 beginning
at 9:45 a.m.
The Early Days of Modern Infrared Spectroscopy: The First Three Years of FT-IR
The Coblentz Society/SAS will present a “60-Year Celebration of the Coblentz Society” symposium organized by Peter Griffiths on March 9 at
8:35 a.m.
2015 award recipients
Pittcon will be honoring several scientists who have made outstanding contributions to analytical chemistry and applied spectroscopy.
Pittsburgh Spectroscopy Award
Alfred G. Redfield is a member of the National Academy of Sciences
and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His additional awards after 2003 include the Biophysics Prize, American Physical Society, Max
Delbruck Prize in Biological Physics and the Russell Varia Lecture and Prize. During his more than 60-year career, he has published more than 200
papers.
Pittsburgh Analytical Chemistry Award
Andrew G. Ewing is a professor at
Chalmers and Gothenburg Universities in Sweden. His group has pioneered chemical measurements at single cells, capillary electrophoresis, electrochemical
imaging, biological mass spectrometry imaging and new electrochemical strategies to quantify the contents of nanometer transmitter vesicles. He is a member
of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Pittsburgh Conference Achievement Award
Ryan
C. Bailey is an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research group focuses on
developing enabling approaches for high information content bioanalysis at the level of genomics, transciptomics, proteomics and epigenomics with
applications both in clinical diagnostics and fundamental biology.
Pittcon Heritage Award
A. Blaine Bowman is a pioneer in the commercialization of ion chromatography and the leading figure in the success of the Dionex Corporation. Bowman
was Dionex’s CEO from its creation in 1980 until 2002 and a director of the firm until its acquisition by ThermoFisher Scientific in 2011.
ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry Award for Young Investigators in Separation Sciences Award
Dwight Stoll is an associate professor of chemistry at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn. He has authored or co-authored 35 peer-reviewed
publications in separation science and over 80 conference presentations. His primary research focus is on the development of two-dimensional liquid
chromatography for both targeted and untargeted analyses.
Chromatography Forum of the Delaware Valley Dal
Nogare Award
Mark R. Schure is chief technology officer of Kroungold Analytical and is an adjunct professor of chemical engineering at
the University of Delaware. His contributions to separation science include detailed theory, simulations and experimental investigations in 2D
chromatography, chromatographic mechanism, capillary electrophoresis and field-flow fractionation. He has published over 100 papers.
Ralph N. Adams Award
John R. Yates is the Ernest W. Hahn Professor at The Scripps Research
Institute. His research interests include development of integrated methods for tandem mass spectrometry analysis of protein mixtures, bioinformatics using
mass spectrometry data and biological studies involving proteomics.
RSC—Robert Boyle Prize for
Analytical Science Award
Eric Bakker began postdoctoral work at the University of Michigan and later became a full professor at Auburn
University. After serving as a professor at Purdue University, he led the Nanochemistry Research Institute at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, before
moving back to Switzerland in 2010 as chair of analytical chemistry at the University of Geneva.
SEAC—Charles N Reilley Award
Hubert Girault is a professor of physical and analytical chemistry at the Ecole
Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland. His research interests span many aspects of electrochemistry from charge transfer reactions at
soft interfaces to electrochemical imaging and new electrochemical ionization techniques for mass spectrometry.
SEAC—Royce W. Murray Award
Thomas Hamann earned his Ph.D. at Caltech and was a postdoctoral scholar at Northwestern
University before starting his independent career at Michigan State University, where he is currently the James Dye Professor of Materials Chemistry. His
research focuses on understanding electron-transfer and photocatalytic reactions at semiconductor surfaces.
The Coblentz Society/ABB—Bomem-Michelson Award
David Jonas, a professor at the University of Colorado, is
internationally recognized for his pioneering work in phase-resolved nonlinear optics and his exploitation of that work to demonstrate femtosecond two-
dimensional (2D) Fourier transform spectroscopy. This optical analog of 2D NMR is becoming widely used in electronic and vibrational spectroscopy.
The Coblentz Society—Williams-Wright Award
Jagdeesh Bandekar works as a technical
development leader in the Adhesives Bonding Group at Dow Automotive Systems in Auburn Hills, Mich. His industrial experience in three companies includes
chemicals, polymers, bulk and specialty gases and thin films. He has been involved in R&D, new product development, evaluating and implementing emerging
technologies. He has also taught and carried out research at universities.
The LCGC Lifetime Achievement in
Chromatography Award
After receiving a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from the University of Virginia, Joseph Jack Kirkland performed
research at DuPont for 40 years. He is best known for his work in HPLC, having produced eight books, more than 160 papers and 36 patents. He has
received many international awards for his work and now is vice president of R&D for Advanced Materials Technology Inc.
The LCGC Emerging Leader in Chromatography Award
Caroline West is an associate professor in analytical chemistry at the
University of Orleans, France. Her scientific interests lie in fundamentals of chromatographic selectivity in SFC and HPLC. Her work is essentially devoted
to improving the understanding of chromatographic chiral and achiral separations to facilitate method development.
Code: E021528 Back |
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