AACC’s 5th Annual Mass Spectrometry and Separation Sciences for Laboratory Medicine Conference, which is taking place October 1-2 in Chicago, will shed light on issues that have come up as this technology is being used more in clinical settings. Past AACC president Steven H. Wong, PhD, DABCC (TC), FACB, who also chairs the conference organizing committee, recently gave CLN Stat a preview of the event.
“The program includes some brief updates on the fundamentals of mass spectrometry but begins to lay down a firm foundation for clinical mass spectrometry for the near future, and to address parallel areas such as gas chromatography,” Wong told CLN Stat. “Other major areas include: high resolution mass spectrometry, mass spectrometry for metabolomics and proteomics in enabling the emerging practice of personalized/precision medicine, and mass spectrometry for tissue imaging.” Wong is a professor of pathology at Wake Forest University and director of clinical chemistry and toxicology and co-director of the Clinical and Translational Mass Spectrometry Center at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Renowned toxicologist Hans Maurer, PhD, of Saarland University in Germany, will be the conference’s keynote speaker. Calling Maurer “one of the world’s leading authorities on mass spectrometry,” Wong said his “long-term and unsurpassed scientific achievements add tremendously to the scientific content of the conference.” Maurer is co-developer of two essential mass spectral libraries; Maurer/Pfleger/Weber 2011 Mass Spectral Library of Drugs, Poisons, Pesticides, Pollutants and Their Metabolites and Maurer/Wissenbach/Weber LCMSn Library of Drugs, Poisons, and Their Metabolites, are indispensable references for toxicologists worldwide. His presentation, “High Resolution Mass Spectrometry for Laboratory Medicine - Current Status and Perspectives in Therapeutic Drug Monitoring/Toxicology,” will reflect his pioneering career and ongoing research involving analytical toxicology and in-vitro and in-vivo toxicokinetics.
The conference will focus on next-generation mass spectrometry for laboratory medicine and pathology. “Thus, it is a continuation of the heritage of the past four successful AACC Mass Spectrometry conferences,” Wong said. “For those practicing or new to mass spectrometry, this is a must-attend event to take home important and new information for translational and clinical diagnostics.”
More information will be forthcoming as details of the event are finalized.
The cost to attend the conference, worth 12 ACCENT credits, is $450 for AACC members and $680 for non-members. Register online.