New Orleans will play host to the 66th Pittcon, which will be held at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, on 8-12 March 2015

As the world’s largest annual premier conference and exposition on laboratory science, Pittcon 2015 is expected to attract more than 16,000 attendees from industry, academia and government from 90 countries worldwide. Pittcon provides a showcase for scientific innovations on laboratory equipment, technology and supplies, unique networking opportunities and educational programmes. Experience cutting-edge technology from over 900 exhibitors, a diverse Technical Program of over 2000 presentations as well as short courses and networking sessions that provide the chance to exchange innovative ideas with scientists from around the world.

The 2015 Wallace H. Coulter Lecture, ‘Plasmonics: Shedding Light on Cross-cutting Science and Technologies’, will be presented by Naomi J. Halas, Stanley C. Moore, Rice University, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The lecture will take place during the Pittcon Opening Session on Sunday 8 March at 4.30 pm.

Dr Halas is a Professor at Rice University and the founding director of the Rice Laboratory for Nanophotonics. She is a pioneering researcher in the field of plasmonics, creating the concept of the ‘tunable plasmon’ and inventing a family of nanoparticles with resonances spanning the visible and infrared regions of the spectrum. Halas pursues fundamental studies of coupled plasmonic systems, and applications of plasmonics in biomedicine, optoelectronics, chemical sensing, photocatalysis, and solar energy, with ‘solar steam’ technology. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
When asked to summarise her research, Dr Halas commented: “My research is centred around the creation of new nanoscale objects that perform a function…understanding the physical properties of those objects at a predictive and quantitative level…and incorporating them into unique applications of societal and technological impact.”

Halas’ lecture will focus on the new types of metal-based nanoparticles and nanostructures of various shapes and compositions that have given rise to new strategies to harvest, control, and manipulate light based on these structures and their properties. By assembling metallic nanoparticles into useful building blocks, a striking parallel between the plasmons of these structures and wave functions of simple quantum systems is universally observed. These unique light-controlling properties can be put to use in a multitude of ways: for detecting single molecules and following chemical reactions, for generation of hot electrons for colour-specific photodetection and photocatalysis, and most recently, for high-efficiency solar steam generation poised to tackle our planet’s energy and sustainability challenges.

The 2015 James L. Waters Annual Symposium topic is Thermal Analysis Instrumentation. The symposium will include three speakers who will cover thermal analysis from its early development through commercialisation and application and highlight its rich history, as well as, its future. The speakers are Roger Lee Blaine (TA Instruments), Robert Danley (TA Instruments) and Kevin P. Menard (PerkinElmer). When asked about trends in thermal analysis, Dr Menard replied: “Thermal analysis is a relatively mature collection of techniques: the last major innovation was fast-scanning DSC. What has changed is the need for more precise information and hyphenated techniques answer this need.” He added, “For example, TGA or STA on their own require a fair amount of assumptions to correlate weight losses with what is actually occurring. Checking the off-gas by using FTIR, MS, or GCMS allows us to be sure of what actually came off.”

This session will take place during Pittcon on Monday, 9 March at 1:30 pm.

The 2015 Short Courses will run from 7-12 March. With over 100 from which to choose, there are a wide variety of classes covering relevant topics in food science, water/wastewater, environmental, life science, pharmaceutical, nanotechnology, fuels and analytical chemistry. In addition to specific disciplines, lab management courses are a significant part of the program focusing on communications, time management, technical writing, statistics, lab safety, compliance and best practices. This year, over 40 new courses have been added, in subjects such as forensics, statistics, separations, LIMS, LC/GC, mass spectrometry, nanotechnology and lab management—to name a few. The topics for Conferee Networking during Pittcon 2015 have recently been announced. Conferee Networking sessions provide an informal venue for a small group of participants to openly discuss topics of mutual interest or solve problems specific to certain instrumentation or procedures.

There will be 35 facilitated sessions during Conference week, covering topics in nanotechnology, pharmaceutical science, education, specialty analysis, method development, environmental science, laboratory information/data analysis, chemical industry and more. These unique networking opportunities begin on Sunday and run through Wednesday afternoon and are open to all registered conferees at no extra cost. Visit www.pittcon.org/conferee-networking to get the complete list and schedule.

Over the following pages we take a look at a selection of the exhibitors and products that will be on display this year.

For further information on the show and a full list of exhibitors go to www.pittcon.org

International Labmate look forward to welcoming you to booth 3737 at Pittcon 2015.