Conferences
As with previous years, Bioanalysis published numerous meeting reports, reflecting the busy meeting schedule in the field. To cover them all in sufficient detail would not be possible, so here is a very brief review of meetings held and reports published.
Our first published report was the 40thanniversary DMDG meeting in Cambridge (UK), followed by the 7thBoston Society APA meeting and a report on the important GBC harmonization roundtable held at the AAPS meeting. Fabio Garofolo, chair of this committee and Associate Editor of the journal, commented on the meeting: A “reference” article with a global authorship to better understand FDA/EMA harmonization activities and the GBC role in global harmonization. Next was a report on the CSPA meeting, where the key focus was usingadvances in science and technology to solve problems and make a positive impact on the lives of others. As part of our March 2012 special issue on HRMS, there was a report on the AAPS/ASMS workshop on HRMS that was held at the AAPS meeting. As in previous years, the Workshop on Recent Issues in Bioanalysis was well attended with the key outcome being the alignment of multiple international bioanalytical guidelines, marking a big step forward in global harmonization of bioanalysis.
The resultant White Papers from these meetings are always well read and cited, indicating the significance of the meeting. The Editorial Board highlighted the sessions on ‘Regulatory Agencies from Around the World’, which updated attendees on recent enhancements to guideline documents in the USA, Canada, UK, France, Japan and Brazil, as well as the discussions on the audit/inspection findings from around the world and the hot topics in the panel Discussion.
The EBF “Hatching” meeting in Brussels in the summer focused on emerging technologies entering the regulated bioanalytical lab and resulted in two interesting papers from Viswanathan and Timmerman. The Boston Society’s APA meeting was in Baltimore this year, with some of the highlights including sessions on biomarkers and DBS.
Finally, the EBF open meeting was held in Barcelona in November and a report on this meeting will follow in the journal. The Land O’Lakes conference highlighted avariety of themed issues, however there were discussions on timely issues held in the evening following dinner with four or five discussion leaders addressing different issues. Outsourcing and repeat analysis/ISR were a couple of the topics covered in this very popular forum. The afternoon session on ‘Dealing with Daily Laboratory issues’ was another well-received session from our Editorial board, where a pair of moderators led the discussion on how different analytical groups address various issues that are encountered in the lab. There was also a nod to the future of bioanalysis in the analytical investigator’s forum held in the evening, where new/junior investigators took to the podium and made short (~20 min) presentations on their work.
Of course, bioanalysts are not just interested in science and all the meetings had some fun and social activities to supplement the scientific talks and give delegates the chance to network. Bioanalysis team members attended lots of these social events and fun activities, and we have highlighted some our favourites here. The best way of attracting people to an exhibit stand has to be Theo the magician, who was at the European Bioanalysis Forum meeting on behalf of Peak Scientific. Our overall favourite social event was the wine tasting event, hosted by Waters at Willis Towers as part of the AAPS meeting. The APA meeting had the best prize giving session for the poster awards, whilst the best food was at the EBF meeting in Barcelona. Pittcon was certainly the best conference for freebies and giveaways, and it also hosted conference display that we felt was the most impressive – AB Sciex’s “Mass-tastic” lorry. As in previous years, the golf at Land of Lakes was popular, along with a boat tour of the Upper Wisconsin Dells and Marriott San Antonio in its idyllic setting right on the Riverwalk was well liked by the delegates at the WRIB.
