American Society for MS Meeting: More Popular Than Ever.

The 48th ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics was held at the Long Beach Convention Center from June 11 - 15. Although statistics were not available at press time, it certainly seems as though this was the biggest meeting ever. If anything, the meeting's growing popularity has made participation more trying and perhaps, for some, less rewarding. The larger number of attendees made for a more congested situation; some sessions on protein analysis were standing room only. In addition, the fact that plenary and technical sessions were held in three separate buildings made traversing between sessions a challenge.

For the first time, commercial exhibits were allowed, but the arrangement around the periphery of the poster hall was far from satisfactory. Each 10-foot booth offered minimal room to actually show products, with few mass spectrometers on display. Many of the exhibitors displayed products complementary to MS such as software, supplies and components. The competition between poster viewers and booth visitors during poster session hours was intense and oral sessions drew attendees away at other times. Nevertheless, the idea of a modest exhibition is a good one, and hopefully it will be expanded next year to allow for larger booths and a separate hall of its own. Interestingly, a number of vendors displayed products in their hotel hospitality suites, but alas, the crowds of hungry and thirsty visitors made it impossible to have intelligent discussions about instruments. Some new instruments were previewed in papers and marketing literature, but few were available to see and touch. Waters previewed its new ZQ MS that is easily one-half the size of the ZMD which it will likely replace in time. Information about it will not be available until later this summer when it is formerly introduced.

The number of papers presented is still extraordinary despite the association's decision to limit authors to just one oral or poster presentation. In fact, it appears this decision only yielded a reduction of less than 25 papers. As they say, nature abhors a vacuum.

As we have noted in recent years, the meeting has steadily gravitated to that of a life sciences forum, and this year was no exception. Protein analysis and drug discovery were the centers of attraction with several oral sessions dedicated to the topics and a large number of papers in general addressing this important topic. Q-TOFs, triple-Quads and ion traps for LC-MS, and MALDI-TOFs dominated papers and discussions.

Bar Graph: MS Techniques Cited ASMS 2000 Papers
ICP-MS    10
CE-MS       19
ESI-TOF    37
Sector MS    41
GC-MS       108
FT-ICR       109
MALDI-TOF   219
Ion trap MS    254
Q-TOF       415
LC-MS      440
Bar Graph: Application Topics Cited in ASMS 2000 Papers
Petrol./Petrochem.   12
Forensics      23
Natural Prods.       24
Toxicology       37
Drug Discovery    75
Environmental       108
DNA/RNA       120
Metabolites      151
Protean       543