New Orleans Convention Centre Celebrates Return of Pittcon

The Ernest N. Morial Convention Centre opened its doors during the first week of March to welcome scientists and industrialists who had gathered in New Orleans to attend the 59th Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy.
It was the first return of Pittcon to this popular venue since the Gulf Coast regions suffered catastrophic damage in the wake of Hurricane
Katrina on August 29, 2005. New Orleans suffered 80% flooding from breaches in canal levee walls, devastating business and residential
areas. Thousands of the city’s homeless were to find refuge in the Superdome and later the Morial Convention Center; reports highlighting critical concern over security, provision of fresh water, food and sanitation at refuges and throughout the city are well documented [1]
and still easily recalled.
Almost three years on and with the restored Morial Convention Centre again providing excellent services and facilities, the Pittcon
Organisers were pleased to report attendance figures of 19,536 (10,677 non-exhibitor and 8,859 exhibitor attendees), representing 85 countries for Pittcon 08. The Exposition included 1,110 exhibitors occupying 2,457 booths (2.4% and 3.4% increase from 2007, respectively) to
showcase their newest instruments, products, and services for laboratories in the analytical, materials characterisation, pharmaceutical, and biomedical fields. First-time exhibitors accounted for 15% of the total.
With many questions and issues [1] still to be resolved over the impact of the 2005 flooding, it was appropriate that Pittcon’s Sunday programme of events, included a Water Consortium hosted by PerkinElmer Life and Analytical Sciences alongside key industry thought leaders in recognition of New Orleans hosting Pittcon® for the first time after Katrina.
This consortium focused on discussing the issues, challenges and importance of protecting water today and in the future and was part of a continuing problem-solving initiative [2] that addresses the global
imperatives of food and consumer product safety, water quality and sustainable energy development to create a healthy and safe environment. As well as encompassing application-focused solutions the initiative promotes innovative thought leadership and public outreach programs to bring insights from top scientists and government agencies
directly to customers. Keynote speakers included Bill Bertera, Executive Director of the Water Environment Federation (WEF), Jim
Clark, Vice President, Black & Veatch Corporation and Dr. Richard Begley, President, Analytical Sciences, PerkinElmer, Inc.
During the week more than 2,200 individual presentations distributed among Invited Symposia, Organised Contributed Sessions, and Poster presentations were featured at Pittcon.
The 2008 Technical Program opened with a Plenary Lecture presented by Dr. Leroy Hood, President of the Institute for Systems Biology,
Seattle, to a capacity crowd of over 1,000 attendees. He described his multi-disciplinary approach to studying biology, including experiences leading from the development of DNA sequencing to the establishment of the Institute by 2005; and his p4 view of medicine (predictive, preventive, personalised and participatory that will see future medicines designed around the individual’s genetic makeup.
Dr Hood was the recipient of this year’s Heritage Award and twelve other symposia were dedicated to award ceremonies acknowledging the accomplishments of outstanding scientists. The American Chemical
Society, Division of Analytical Chemistry expanded this year’s co-programming to include eight Invited Symposia, six Organised
Contributed Sessions, and one Poster Session. This partnership between The Pittsburgh Conference and ACS-DAC will continue for the third year at Pittcon 2009. The Conferee Networking Sessions, which premiered in 2007, were expanded from 8 to 27 sessions this year with many additional
topics and were attended by more than 500 participants.
[1] search www. ‘Katrina’ [2] PerkinElmer’s partnership with WEF and
the International Water Association’s (IWA) World Water Monitoring Day™ (WWMD) is among the strategic partnerships PerkinElmer is forming as part of its EcoAnalytix initiative.