by Robert Stevenson
The 71st American Society for Mass Spectrometry conference drew almost 6,000 people to the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston last month. The program was chock full of events that ran from 7:00 a.m. to after 10:00 p.m., including the “hospitality suites” provided by the big six mass spec instrument vendors that offer a forum for promotional and technological activities well into the night.
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‘Omics was the mainstream of posters and lectures. Focused topics included imaging and high mass molecules, such as IgMs and virus-like particles with mass up to 400 mDa.
Innovation and intelligence are the buzz words that Agilent uses to describe their new Revident LC/Q-TOF instrument. Innovations include temperature control of the vertical TOF flight tube, which improves mass accuracy. A new dynode detector improves resolution and dynamic range, especially at low m/z. The LC/QTOF also includes advanced, modular software for system monitoring and diagnostics of instrument status, including ion optics and electronics, as well as autotune software that can be scheduled for system suitability verification at time slots when the lab is unattended. This helps improve throughput. Agilent’s library of subroutines includes “blank injection” to verify insignificant carry over; “above calibration range” for a hot sample, triggering reduction in sample volume on the re-run, and “auto triggering” of the need for confirmation of analyte identity of using a confirmation run.
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