Farewell to ASMS 2009

It’s hard to believe these three days have gone by so quickly, but here we are on the last day of this week's show coverage. It has been a great three days here in Philadelphia, and we would like to thank everyone who came by our booth and said hello. There is still time of course, and for those of you who still haven’t stopped by, please visit us at booth #39 before leaving on your journey home.

And even though this is our last day of coverage, there is still a lot of science to experience and a number of good sessions to attend. One of the highlights will surely be “New Developments in Bioinformatics” which explores one of hottest topics in the field today. “Proteogenomics of the plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis,” by Sam Payne, Shih-Ting Huang, and Rembert Pieper of the J. Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, MD may be one of the most intriguing (and unique) presentations of the show. The plague may be considered extinct for hundreds of years in most parts of the world, but it is still a real problem in many places. Here, the research team is analyzing spectra obtained using tandem MS to analyze Y. pestis, otherwise known as the plague virus. Another good session looks to be “A Fast Previewer for Shotgun Proteomics Data,” by Marshall W. Bern of the Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto , CA, in which Dr. Bern looks at a solution to the “chicken-and-egg problem” of choosing modifications for database search. Data is a critical component of today’s laboratory and too often, it can become a problem in itself, so presentations like this will help a wide range of scientists.

Finally, all of us at LCGC and Spectroscopy would like to wish you a good trip home to wherever your final destination is. We hope you enjoyed the show as much as we did, and if for some reason you still did not get to talk to the staff member you were looking for, please feel free to contact us any time when we are back in the office.

Happy travels!