ASMS is underway here in Baltimore, Md., and the meeting has been so engaging that we haven’t even sneaked out to try some local crab cakes. The proteomics conference officially kicked off last night with a talk from Jason Kalirai from the Telescope Science Institute. The astrobiology- and astrophysics-rich presentation was out of the norm for this crowd, and had a palpable cool factor among mass spec scientists.
The first full day was Monday, featuring a program chock-full of concurrent podium sessions, workshops, and a poster viewing. As usual, life science is the best-represented area of mass spec use at this event, with session topics ranging from protein informatics and antibody development to biologic characterization and biomedical applications. Today’s award lecture came from proteomics pioneer Richard Caprioli, who is being recognized for developing MALDI imaging mass spectrometry.
Our team has really enjoyed the unusual setup in the exhibit hall, where we’re stationed in booth #67. As always, the ASMS exhibit hall is large enough to make attendees wish they had golf carts to get around, but this year the exhibitors and posters are interspersed in little islands, making it really easy to sample some of everything (including hot pretzels!). It’s nice being so close to posters that we can dash over and soak in some of the great science at this show.
There are hundreds of posters on display each day, so even with our wandering we only got to see a small fraction of what was available on Monday. One poster we found particularly interesting came from Neil Kelleher’s lab at Northwestern University. It focused on finding new ways to remove SDS, which is an important factor to our new SageELF workflow so it’s something our R&D team has been working on as well.
Speaking of which, if you haven’t stopped by to see the SageELF, please do so. We’ve had terrific conversations with the many attendees who have come to find out how this automated electrophoresis tool can reduce sample complexity, and we look forward to even more as the conference continues.
And now, if you’ll excuse us, all eyes are on the legendary hospitality suites tonight. After a long day at the conference, we’re looking forward to catching up with our favorite mass spec scientists in a more relaxing setting!