Instrument Launches, Small-Molecule Techniques and Kool-Aid as PITTCON Philadelphia Begins

Pittcon 2019 now in its 70th year, meets in Philadelphia this week.  The meeting is an opportunity to showcase improvements in laboratory technology.  While mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography are key areas for vendors, this year’s meeting will feature a large demonstration space where vendors will show off spectrometry, software and even analyze common everyday beverages to demonstrate their system features.

Bioinformatics Inc., Kalorama Information and related companies will be present with a large team.  Kalorama Information’s partner publication SDi (STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS INTERNATIONAL)  recently published its 80+ instrument market analysis report, Global Assessment 2019, http://bioinfoinc.com/product/2019-sdi-global-report-analytical-life-science-industry/.  The report covers the bulk of the industry at the meeting.

A few noticeable early announcements are on our radar:

 Bruker Biosciences will exhibit a new inert gas fusion (IGF) analyzer.  The new G6 LEONARDOTM is an economic, robust and precise inert gas fusion (IGF) analyzer for oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen (ONH) concentration measurements in inorganic samples.  With its pre-calibrated standard methods and argon gas instead of helium, the G6 LEONARDO addresses the needs of industrial process and QC for easy and cost-effective operation.

Bruker also announced a new software acquisition intended to help manage pharamceutical projects.  Bruker announced that it has acquired Arxspan LLC , a provider of cloud-based scientific software and workflow solutions. Arxspan is known for its line of cloud-based products for the management of research data, with a focus on serving pharmaceutical and biopharma customers.

“Known-Knowns” and “Unknown-Unknowns”

Among many other show developments and announcements, Thermo Fisher Scientific will host two seminars dedicated to small-molecule.  The company will inform attendees of its new software solutions coupled to a new Orbitrap HRAM mass spectrometer to tackle the challenge of capturing sufficient, high-quality MSn fragmentation spectra for each component within complex samples. The company says these new solutions revolutionize the process and effectiveness of confident compound characterization of known-knowns, known-unknowns, and unknown-unknowns.

In another seminar, Thermo will feature New dual-LC technology and single-quadrupole MS provide opportunities to increase throughput by analyzing samples more efficiently and reduce operational costs by optimizing bench space. Learn how these systems can be used for efficient characterization of (bio)pharmaceuticals, fast method development, and comprehensive separation and detection of complex samples.  The Vanquish Duo for Dual LC houses two flow paths in one system to save space and improve returns.

Waters Corp. will demonstrate it’s Automated PeakTracker in Fusion QbD for Advanced LC and LC/MS Method Development a new platform that dramatically advances chromatographic method development:   Waters Empower CDS with Fusion QbD® Software containing PeakTracker™, the Waters ACQUITY H-Class PLUS UPLC, PDA detection, and ACQUITY QDa Mass Detector.

The company says that PeakTracker is a new automated peak tracking technology that optimizes and simplifies mass detection in the method development workflow. Complex separation challenges addressed includes.  Partially co-eluted peaks assigned the same mass, Completely co-eluted peaks resulting in missing data.

“Beverage Identification” on Display

 Waters is hosting a “Kool Aid Never Looked So Good” Separation Challenge to test sample preparation skills on the exhibit floor Thursday.  Participants will be given two “mystery” samples and some clues about the products. Using solid-phase extraction, they will guess the food dyes, order of elution and complete a separation in less than one minute.   Judging will be based on the accuracy of your guesses and the performance of separation.

PITTCONN Philadelphia will boast two live demo areas where attendees can participate in 20-minute, interactive product demonstrations. The dedicated areas will cover topics such as air monitoring, new techniques in water testing, innovative products to increase lab efficiency, and recent developments in spectroscopy, spectral databases, and techniques for using hazardous materials.  Among the events at the  “Live Demo” areas include:

  • Is your coffee really decaf? Lumex Instruments will test that, using capillary electrophoresis technology.
  • Trajan Scientific and Medical will demonstrate its two automated systems for performing Liquid-Liquid extractions [LLE] on a micro scale. They can be applied as effective alternatives to the time-consuming manual processes
  • Sartorius will exhibit its “Next-Generation” balances for high performance lab use.  Balances feature a 0.1 mg resolution at 64 g, 124 g, or 224 g. capacities.  Each is available with or without an internal calibration weight.
  • Shimadzu Scientific Instruments will display its Elemental Analysis: EDX-7000 X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer Bench-top energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence instrumentation can provide a safe, fast and easy alternative to more difficult and expensive technologies like Atomic Absorption (AA), Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) and Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS).
  • Bio-Rad Laboratories will demonstrate its Bio-Rad’s KnowItAll® Solutions, combining  IR & Raman spectroscopy with spectral analysis software
  • HORIBA Scientific will demonstrate in nanoparticle identification, quantification, and sizing by nanoparticle tracking
  • Cerno Bioscience will present its GC/MS Compound ID Using Accurate Mass and Automated Mixture Detection

 

 

 

/by Bruce Carlson