Alexander Pozdneev at the ASMS 2008 Conference

40-foot high blue bear in front of the Colorado Convention Center. Image courtesy of Alexander V. Pozdneev The 56th ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry took place in Denver (CO, USA), June 1-5, 2008. The ASR Department PhD student Alexander Pozdneev presented a poster "Supercomputer Simulations of Interacting Ion Cloud Dynamics in FT-ICR Cells Using Novel Parallel Three-Dimensional Domain Decomposition Finite Element Particle-in-Cell Code" (co-authors: A. M. Popov, A. S. Misharin) at the conference.

International conference "Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics" is an annual meeting of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS). Approximately 7000 scientists attended this conference, and over 3000 research papers have been presented in 2008. The conference is the biggest and most representative mass spectrometry event. The high level of the conference is the result of strict paper peer-reviewing, furthermore, each author may present no more than once at the conference.

The ASMS is a professional association that supports the scientific field of mass spectrometry and allied topics. ASMS was founded in 1969 and, as of 2008, has approximately 7000 members, working on scientific reseach and development in mass spectrometry methods and instruments. ASMS members come from universities, industry and goverment laboratories, practising basic research in the fields of chemistry, geology, biology, physics.

The 56th ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry lasted five days. The program begun on Sunday, June 1, with tutorial lectures and the opening session and plenary lecture. Monday through Thursday there were full program days of seven concurrent oral sessions, poster sessions and exhibitions, and workshops. The conference proveded the unique possibility for networking between basic science researchers, academical science representatives and industry officials, gave the opportunity to discuss the problems of current importance and prospective research directions.

Sections on computer methods in mass spectrometry and its industrial applications (projection of new instrumentation, biosensors, drug design) were of a particular interest. The joint papers of engineers, experimentalists, and experts in mathematical modelling and computer science were devoted to the development of devices, algorithms and programs aimed at enhancements of biological macromolecules mass measurement precision and their identification. The latest achievements in genomics and proteomics became possible just because of recent breakthroughs in mass spectrometry and bioinformatics.

The support of the attendance was provided by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project no. 08-01-08096-z.