Indianapolis - 4-8 June 2017

The American Society of Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) is quite simply the biggest Mass Spec meeting on the planet! This year is the fourteenth consecutive year VRS have attended and exhibited at ASMS! Denver - ASMS 2011 - was also the catalyst for the launch of our North American business. The meeting provides a perfect opportunity to keep abreast of industry trends and developments, it also gives us the perfect opportunity to meet our clients and identify new potential ones. Since its inception in 1953, ASMS has continued to attract scientists globally. It all started with a modest (Pittsburgh, PA) meeting in 1953 with less than 100 attendees and has since grown to its current level where several thousand scientists attend. The meeting nowadays has moved to an application specific focus format - whereas the earlier meetings had a heavy Mass Spec/Petrochem focus. Examples of application areas nowadays are, environmental, clinical, metabolomics, biopharma, food, etc - with LC/MS and LC/MS/MS being the most popular techniques currently employed.

The meeting provides Mass Spec vendors with an ideal opportunity to announce and showcase new products and developments - advancements in technology has seen Quad-ToF analyser coupling, ion mobility incorporated into mass specs and high resolution Orbitrap technology. With the possibility of identifying "game changing " breakthroughs becoming less and less feasible vendors have focussed on providing application specific solutions and reducing the footprint/miniaturising the technology. Application specific solutions incorporate all the components required to provide the user with a "turnkey" answer - with a much simpler user interface. This generally involves providing and integrating sample preparation techniques, standards, automation/robotics, HPLC columns, software and of course LC/MS. Mass Spec purists are perhaps not too happy with the move towards these "black box" solutions - however this is market driven. For example, a surgeon is not too concerned with how healthy and diseased tissues are differentiated - their concern lies with the maximum removal of diseased tissue.

As ASMS has grown in size so have the Mass Spec vendors - albeit not necessarily the number of vendors. Modern vendors tend to be part of multi-billion dollar corporations. However, the increase in usage of Mass Specs worldwide (in all shapes and sizes) has seen a steep rise of a plethora of support, service and supply companies - which thrive on the back of the vendors' success. Many of these companies are smaller entities who employ a handful of staff. Increase in global Mass Spec usage has resulted in over 250 jobs advertised at ASMS. Consequently, we would suggest it is a great time to consider joining the industry - if you're already "in" it is a good time to progress your career! VRS can of course help you here in addition to the typical "Mass Spec user" roles advertised at ASMS VRS can also help you move into other areas - for example technical support, field service, sales, etc

All in all, we are happy to report we had a successful, productive and fun time in Indianapolis! Why not come and say hello to us at the 66th ASMS in San Diego next year - 3 -7 June 2018!