CPAC and IFPAC

In late July, I again had the pleasure of attending the CPAC Summer Institute. Then the following week, I attended the IFPAC Board telecon, starting the planning cycle for the February 2018 Conference. I realize that I have participated in both groups for over two decades: more than half of my working life. We all get into ruts of one kind or another, but I thought about why I participate in these two meetings every year and others only sporadically. There is a compound answer to this why question – I enjoy the people and I appreciate the diversity of topics (after all, we all know that chemometrics applies to everything!). Let’s think about diversity first. Although corralled into a very narrow definition of late, diversity is also suggestive of a broad technology base.

Looking over the CPAC meeting agenda, we had reports on the Medicines for All Initiative (driving down the cost and complexity of analysis), point-of-care bioanalytical devices, battery-free sensing and communication, process analytical technology, biomass to chemicals, bi-directional brain-computer interfaces, manufacturing intelligence and optimization, 3D imaging, and multivariate analysis. Then the analyzer space was chock full with analyzers based on GC, LC, dielectrics, mass spec, optical spectroscopy, NMR, microfluidics, flow injection, ion mobility, and the list goes on. Very few venues offer this breadth of science in a single 3-day setting. We, as scientists, need to focus –but there is a lot to learn from our colleagues who are tasked with tackling analogous problems..

The IFPAC meeting is similarly a melting pot of different industries with the common issue of better analysis and control of manufacturing processes. Although IFPAC has moved toward catering more and more to the pharmaceutical industry and the FDA, the pendulum is swinging back to reinvigorate the chemicals, petroleum, food, and environmental. And the trend is toward more reliable analysis, faster analysis, and efficient handling of the mountains of data we encounter now.

In terms of technical diversity and quality of attendees, the CPAC meetings and the IFPAC conferences stand alone. If you do not frequent these organizations, you are doing both yourself and your organizations a disservice.

Just a thought…